The effect of hypervitaminosis A on embryonic limb-bones cultivated in vitro / by Honor B. Fell and E. Mellanby.

  • Fell, Honor B.
Date:
[1952?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The effect of hypervitaminosis A on embryonic limb-bones cultivated in vitro / by Honor B. Fell and E. Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    part of the rudiment beyond the constriction often became completely detached from the shaft and was sometimes displaced to one side (Text- fig. 2). In the highest concentration (Table 1, Exp. 50) by the 11th day a con¬ striction had formed at both ends of all the bones except the tibia. The consistency of the hypervitaminotic explants changed during cultiva¬ tion. Instead of remaining firm and stiff like the controls, when transferred Explant Text-fig. 1. Camera lucida drawings of a pair of living femora from a 6-day chick embryo (stage 2) one grown in normal and the other in AH medium (Exp. 46, Table 1). During 9 days’ cultiva¬ tion the femur in normal medium elongated from 1-6 to 5-2 mm. and showed no distortion. That in AH medium grew normally for the first 2 days; then growth rapidly declined, a con¬ striction appeared in the distal part of the shaft and by the 9th day the condylar end was nearly detached from the diaphysis and the rudiment was shrunken and bent. Sections of these explants are shown in PI. 1, figs. 2 and 3. to fresh medium they were found to be soft and ‘rubbery’. Throughout the culture period the cells surrounding the cartilage grew profusely, forming a thick capsule of connective and myogenic tissue around the skeletal rudiment. Sections of the explants grown in the higher concentrations of vitamin A revealed some interesting histological abnormalities. The differentiation of the
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