R. Higashikubo et al., A COMPARISON OF TIME-LAPSE CINEMICROGRAPHY AND FLOW-CYTOMETRY FOR THESTUDY OF ACCELERATED CELL-CYCLE TRANSIT, Cell proliferation, 27(12), 1994, pp. 697-709
Two methods for the study of cell-cycle progression, time-lapse cinemi
crography (TLCM) and flow cytometry (FCM), were compared for their abi
lity to measure the shortening of cell-cycle transit time induced by t
emporary inhibition of DNA synthesis. DNA synthesis was reversibly inh
ibited by aphidicolin (APH) in synchronized HeLa cells obtained by mit
otic collection. TLCM directly measured intermitotic time intervals an
d thereby directly obtained the cell-cycle transit time distribution.
In contrast, FCM measured time dependent changes in the fractions of c
ells in the cell-cycle phases from which the distribution of cells tra
versing a cell-cycle boundary, such as that between G(1) and S phase,
was determined. Nevertheless, both methods provided equivalent measure
s of the cell-cycle transit time and its dispersion. However, TLCM ape
ared to provide a better measure of skewness of the transit time distr
ibution than did FCM. Further, both methods were able to detect change
s in the cell cycle transit on the order of 1 h or less. The TLCM data
showed a greater precision (due to a larger number of data points) th
an that from FCM. However, FCM was able to directly measure changes in
the transit of G(1) phase whereas TLCM would require two different ex
periments to make a similar determination. The results obtained in thi
s study show that FCM can replace TLCM to study most aspects of cell-c
ycle progression.