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Gap Junction Assembly and Endocytosis Correlated with Patterns of Growth in a Cultured Adrenocortical Tumor Cell (SW-13)¹

Departments of Anatomy [S. A. M., W. J. L.], Physiology and Biophysics [J. T.], and Internal Medicine [S. T. D.], University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242

After seeding at subconfluent densities, human adrenocortical adenocarcinoma cells (SW-13) proliferate to form a typical epithelial monolayer upon the culture vessel substratum. Single cells of the confluent monolayer are spontaneously released into the medium, however, where they may remain isolated or reaggregate with other floating cells. In this study, we examined the growth patterns of these cells in culture and analyzed alterations of their most prominent intercellular contact specialization, the gap junction, as cellular relationships changed during growth and development of the cell culture. We report here details of gap junction assembly during cellular aggregation and correlate the apparent endocytosis of gap junctions with the spontaneous release of single cells from the monolayer into the medium.

¹ This study was supported by Grant PDT-84 from the American Cancer Society.

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed at Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267.

Received 10/21/80. Accepted 7/14/81.

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