C-ANAPHASES (COMMON VARIANT) ARE UNRELATED TO COLCHICINE AND PHYTOHEMAGGLUTININ

We evaluated the effect of different concentrations of colchicine (0.0 , 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 mu g/ml) and phytohemagglutinin (PHA) (0.10, 0.15, 8.2 0 mu g/ml) on the rate of C-anaphases in lymphocyte cultures from five healthy individuals with the common variant of C-anaphases. For each of the 12 possible combinations, two subjects were randomly tested. Th e frequency of these variant figures was <3%; a single culture (out of six with the colchicine concentration of 0.1 mu g/ml) lacked C-anapha ses. Multiple variance and Student's t tests revealed, as the only sig nificant difference, a decrease with the colchicine concentration of 0 .3 mu g/ml compared with the cultures without colchicine (p <0.05), wh ich exhibited the greatest ratio of C-anaphases. The PHA had no influe nce on the frequency of C-anaphases. We conclude that the common varia nt of C-anaphases is unrelated to the colchicine and PHA concentration s tested; moreover, our data confirm the occurrence of such a mitotic variant in colchicine-free cultures.