1968 Articles

Growth control in cultured cells: selection of sublines with increased sensitivity to contact inhibition and decreased tumor-producing ability.

Pollack, Robert; Green, H.; Todaro, G. J.

As growing cultures of mammalian cells reach a high density, their growth rate decreases and in some cases a substantially nondividing population may result. This arrest of growth requires cell contact," 2 though soluble substances are also involved.3-5 The phenomenon has usually been called contact inhibition of division.

Transformants and tumors are relatively insensitive to growth inhibition, but the present experiments have shown that, even in such populations, it is possible to select for sensitive cells by exposure to 5-fluoro-2-deoxyuridine (FUdR) and to obtain stable variants greatly altered in their culture behavior and in tumorproducing ability.