Conditions previously established for the growth in culture of cells isolated from early postnatal rat cerebella, have been adapted for the growth of similarly isolated cells from mice cerebella, in the belief that such cultures may provide a useful model for studying a number of aspects of neural development. These cultures have been shown to be reproducible, both in terms of plating efficiency and cell-type composition, and survive and develop for at least three weeks in vitro.
In an effort to identify cell-type specific antigens, some of which have been implicated in the process of neural recognition, techniques have been developed for the production and detection of monoclonal antibodies to cerebellar cells in culture. The successful production of such antibodies may provide both new cell type specific markers and new experimental tools.
Preliminary efforts to characterise one antibody, produced by the methods described, indicate that it recognises an antigen present on filaments in both astrocytes and fibroblastic cells present in cultures of rat cerebellar cells
