Effect of dissociative methods on cortisol binding and glutamyltransferase inducibility in chick embryo retina

The ability of the isolated embryonic chick retina (12 day) to bind a steroid (cortisol) decreases when the tissue is dissociated; the extent of this decrease depends upon the method of dissociation. Trypsin and mechanical dissociation decreased cortisol binding slightly; papain dissociation essentially eliminated it. Cortisol binding decreased with time in culture in both whole retina and monolayer cultures; this decrease may reflect, in part, a similar developmental decreasein ovo. Inducibility of glutamine synthetase in whole retinas and retinal monolayers prepared with either trypsin or papain also decreased with time in culture. For whole and trypsin-dissociated retinas, the drop in inducibility correlates with a drop in cortisol-binding capacity. This was not the case for monolayer cultures prepared by papain dissociation.