Random mitotic activities across human embryonic stem cell colonies

A systemic and quantitative study was performed to examine whether different levels of mitotic activities, assessed by the percentage of S-phase cells at any given time point, existed at different physical regions of human embryonic stem (hES) cell colonies at 2, 4, 6 days after cell passaging. Mitotically active cells were identified by the positive incorporation of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) within their newly synthesized DNA. Our data indicated that mitotically active cells were often distributed as clusters randomly across the colonies within the examined growth period, presumably resulting from local deposition of newly divided cells. This latter notion was further demonstrated by the confined growth of enhanced green florescence protein (EGFP) expressing cells amongst non-GFP expressing cells. Furthermore, the overall percentage of mitotically active cells remained constantly at about 50% throughout the 6-day culture period, indicating mitotic activities of hES cell cultures were time-independent under current growth conditions.