Mitogenic activity of fetal bovine serum, fish fry extract, insulin-like growth factor-I, and fibroblast growth factor on brown bullhead catfish cells--BB line.

Bioassays were performed to assess the effects of different levels of growth medium supplementation with fetal bovine serum (FBS), fish fry extract (FE), combinations of FBS and FE, and addition of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) on the proliferation of brown bullhead catfish cells (BB line). Treatments (n = 4) were: 2.5, 5, 10, and 15.0% FBS or FE and 5/2.5, 5/5, 10/2.5, and 10/5 of a FBS/FE combination as supplement to the growth medium, or the addition of 0.1, 1, 2.5, 10, 25, and 75 ng/ml of either IGF-I or FGF to the growth media. Initial cell density was 1.1 x 10(6) cells per well on uncoated 24-well plates. Incubation temperature was 29.5 +/- 0.7 degrees C. Six hours after plating, initial culture medium was removed, plates rinsed with Dulbecco's phosphate buffered saline, treatment media added, and cells allowed to proliferate for 24 hours. Another bioassay was performed with rat myoblast omega cells (RMo) using the same levels of growth medium supplemented with FBS, FE and FBS/FE. Base growth medium was Dulbecco's MEM. The initial cell density was 7.2 x 10(6) cells per well, and the bioassay was carried out at 36.0 +/- 0.5 degrees C, on a 95% air, 5% CO2 incubator. Increasing levels of FBS had a positive effect (P < 0.05) on the proliferation of both BB and RMo cells. Increasing levels of FE had a negative effect (P < 0.05) on the proliferation of BB cells and totally inhibited the proliferation of RMo cells at any level of supplementation. Higher levels of FE on the FBS/FE combinations presented a negative effect on the proliferation of both BB and RMo cells (P < 0.05). Insulin-like growth factor I had a positive quadratic effect (P < 0.05) on the proliferation of BB cells. Apparently, mammalian growth factors slightly stimulated mitogenic activity in fish cells, while FE contained factors which inhibited the mitogenic activity of RMo and BB cell lines.