Contact inhibition of speed in 3T3 and its independence from postconfluence inhibition of cell division

✍ Scribed by Eric Martz

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 827 KB
• Volume: 81
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9541
• DOI: 10.1002/jcp.1040810105

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The average speed of nuclear translocation of 3T3 cells, recorded in a time‐lapse film of a perfused culture, was negatively correlated with the number of contacting cells, and, to a lesser degree, with the amount of a cell's perimeter in contact with other cells. When a cell was in contact with five or more other cells, its speed was reduced by 50%, on the average, although the variation in individual cell speed was considerable at each level of contact. A partial correlation analysis showed that any extracellular soluble factors governed by the local cell density had little or no effect on speed, relative to the prominent effect of the number of cell‐cell contacts, and hence that 3T3 cells display true contact inhibition of speed. This confirms the original demonstration by Abercrombie and Heaysman (1952), who studied chick embryo heart fibrpolasts. In our study, the relationships between average speed and age of the culture was such that a possible independent contribution of a time‐associated factor other than contact to the diminution in average speed, although not necessary to account for the data, could not be excluded.

The same intercellular contacts found to inhibit speed in this study were previously reported to cause no immediate prolongation of individual cell generation times, despite the fact that the filmed culture was undergoing so‐called “contact” inhibition of cell division. In the present study, moreover, no correlation was observed between the average speeds of individual cells and their generation times. Hence, postconfluence inhibition of cell division and contact inhibition of speed of cell movement seem to be independent phenomena.