Differentiation of lens tissue from the progeny of chick retinal pigment cells cultured in vitro: a demonstration of a switch of cell types in clonal cell culture.

Clonal cell lines isolated from the pigmented retina of 8.5-day chick embryos initially retained the capacity to form pigment. After several passages, however, many cells lost pigment granules and differentiated into lens-like structures. The lens-specific nature of the structures formed in cultures originally derived from retinal pigment cells was established by both ultrastructural and immunological studies.