Immediate effects of serum depletion on dissociation between growth in size and cell division in proliferating 3T3 cells

✍ Scribed by Olle Larsson; Eva Dafgård; Wilhelm Engström; Anders Zetterberg

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 776 KB
• Volume: 127
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9541
• DOI: 10.1002/jcp.1041270212

✦ Synopsis

Proliferating nonconfluent 3T3 cells become committed to proceed through the cell cycle or to enter Go during the first post-mitotic part of GI (G,pm). The decision to proceed through G,pm is dependent on the presence of serum growth factors in the culture medium. Cells that have passed this particular growth-factor-dependent cell cycle stage are independent of serum growth factors and undergo mitosis on schedule. We report here that Glps, S, and G2 cells cease to increase in size when serum is withdrawn. As a result the mitotic cell size after 8 hours serum starvation is reduced to approximately 60% of the normal mitotic cell. This reduced growth in cell size is due to a rapid decrease in protein synthesis and some increase in protein degradation. This dissociation between growth in size and cell-cycle progression within a single cell cycle provides a new approach to study the two processes separately.