Developmental competency in spinal nerve fiber extension on a reconstituted basement-membrane-like matrix.

Nerve fibers readily extend from larval frog spinal cord explants when cultured on a commercially available reconstituted basement-membrane-like matrix derived from the EHS mouse sarcoma. This superior, naturally derived substratum enables the in vitro development of complex neuritic arrays with long survival times in a defined medium, thus permitting the detailed analysis of spontaneous and target-mediated neuritogenesis.