1997 Volume 20 Issue 12 Pages 1219-1223
An in vitro assay of fibronectin (FN) was established based on the adhesion of baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells through the cell-binding domain of FN.Each well of a microtiter plate was coated with samples or various concentrations of standard FN. Bovine serum albumin was further coated to prevent the non-specific adhesion of the cells. Various numbers of BHK cells were plated and incubated. After washing out the non-attached cells, the number of attached cells was measured using neutral red (NR)-staining.The conditions for the assay were optimal when 1×105 cells/well were plated and incubated for 90 min. The linear relationship between the concentration of FN coated and the absorbance of NR was observed in the range of 0.1-1.0 μg/ml of FN. The inhibition of cell binding by the peptides containing an Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence demonstrated that this assay system depended on FN-mediated cell adhesion through the major cell-binding domain.
