Specificity of adhesion between cloned neural cell lines.

We have investigated the phenomenon of intercellular adhesion using cloned cell lines derived from the rat central nervous system. Adhesion is assayed by measuring the rate at which a suspension of labeled (probe) cells of one type adheres to monolayers of other cell types. In general a given probe cell such as the nerve line B50 will adhere rapidly to most other cell lines, providing little information about the specificity of the interactions. However, we discovered several methods of pretreating the B50 cells which specifically alter their rate of adhesion to various types of monolayers. Treating the B50 cells with trypsin, coating them with an antinerve antiserum, or simply lowering the assay temperature from 20 degrees C to 0 degrees C were 3 separate procedures which resulted in slower rates of adhesion of the B50 probe cells to 3 distinct subclasses of monolayers. These data suggest that different mechanisms are involved in the adhesion of B50 cells to the various other cell lines. To account for the differences, we postulate the existence of pairs of interlocking or complementary surface components on the cell lines, a concept that has also been valuable in understanding interactions in other systems. We discuss the characterization of these proposed components and outline their usefulness in categorizing the cell lines.