Figure 5.
Cell diameter and number before and after zinc or rat transferrin supplementation of the rat bone marrow cell culture. (A) At day 0, the rat bone marrow cells (with medium) could be separated into three groups, namely, the ‘a’, ‘b’, and ‘c’ groups, which had peaks at 5.1, 7.4, and 8.5 μm, respectively; (B-a) After the cells were suspension-cultured with rat serum but without ZnCl2 for one day, the cell diameter and number did not change significantly; (B-b) When ZnCl2 was supplemented to the cells (with medium and rat serum), which were suspension-cultured for one day, the cell distribution changed greatly. The ‘a’ group cell number increased from 726 ± 42 to 1138 ± 188 × 103/mL (n = 6) (1.6-fold, p < 0.01); however, the ‘b’ group cell number decreased from 913 ± 73 to 719 ± 94 × 103/mL (n = 6) (0.8-fold, p < 0.05); (B-c) When ZnCl2 and rat transferrin were supplemented to the cells (with medium but without rat serum) for one day, the changes in cell distribution and cell number were quite similar to those in (B-b), i.e., the ‘a’ group cell number increased to 1058 ± 42 × 103/mL (n = 6) (1.5-fold, p < 0.001) and the ‘b’ group cell number decreased to 563 ± 61 × 103/mL (0.6-fold, p < 0.001) (n = 6). These figures are representative of six different experiments.