Coating bacteriological dishes with fibronectin permits spreading and growth of human diploid fibroblasts

The ability of human diploid fibroblasts to spread and grow has been compared in control and fibronectin-coated bacteriological dishes and tissue culture dishes. After 6 hr in culture, complete cell spreading occurred in tissue culture dishes, but no cell spreading was observed in bacteriological dishes. If however, the bacteriological dishes were pre-coated with fibronectin, cell spreading occurred similarly to that observed in the tissue culture dishes. Rates of cell growth were found to be similar in control tissue culture dishes and in fibronectin-coated tissue culture and bacteriological dishes. After 72 hours, the cell yield was about 490% of the starting cell number. On the other hand, in control bacteriological dishes there was much less cell growth. After 72 hours, the cell yield was only about 170% of the starting cell number.