CELL-CYCLE DYNAMICS OF MICROCARRIER CULTURES

In anchorage-dependent cell microcarrier cultures knowledge of the cel l's growth kinetics is necessary in order to design and successfully o perate bioreactors, particularly on a large scale. However, in additio n to growth kinetics, an understanding of the physiological state of t he culture is also important. In this paper the cell cycle progression of Vero and MRC-5 microcarrier cultures have been observed utilizing a flow cytometer. Flow cytometry analysis enabled the differentiation of the various phases of the cell cycle as the culture moved from init ial inoculation to the stationary, or confluent stage. Not only was th e flow cytometer able to distinguish contact inhibited cells from nonc ontact inhibited cells, but the measured fraction of contact inhibitio n cells were found to be in agreement with fractions predicted from a previously developed cellular automaton model for microcarrier culture s. Further, the data from the stationary phase was used to quantify th e death rate in microcarrier cultures.