<i>In vitro </i>explant culture of mantle epithelium of freshwater pearl mussel

Abstract

The <i>in vitro </i>culture of nacre secreting pallial mantle explants of freshwater pearl producing mussel, <i>Lamellidens marginalis </i>(Lamarck) included depuration of pearl mussels with different physical and chemical agents to eradicate various<i> </i>commensals, removal of pallial mantle ribbon , aseptic preparation of explants from the ribbon and transfer of those explants

into tissue culture petri dishes. Special synthetic tissue culture, media enriched with additives <i>viz., </i>inactivated calf fetal serum and antibiotics were poured into plates with explants. The culture plates were incubated at 30°C in a CO₂ incubator at 5% CO₂, The cultures could be maintained for 42-45 days without any contamination. After 12 hr epithelial like cells began

to migrate out and formed a complete cell sheet surrounding the explant within 12-15 days. The epithelial cells in the culture indicated functional viability as subsequently after 38-40 days of culture, typical aragonitic 'nacre' crystals of CaCO₃ could be observed throughout the culture plates.