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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Temporal Tracking of Cell Cycle Progression Using Flow Cytometry without the Need for Synchronization
Published on: August 16, 2015
Cell-cycle, phase-specific cell killing by carmustine in sensitive and resistant cells
P A Linfoot1, M H Barcellos-Hoff, T P Brent
1Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco 94143-0520.
Abstract:
Cell-cycle, phase-specific cell kill caused by carmustine (BCNU) was measured in 4 cell lines with different sensitivities to the drug. Cells were treated with BCNU for 1 hour after which enriched subpopulations in various phases of the cell cycle were obtained by centrifugal elutriation and were assayed for cell survival. Levels of activity of guanine O6-alkyltransferase were measured for each line; intracellular levels of this repair protein have been correlated with cellular resistance to chloroethylnitrosoureas. Only BTRC-19, a clone of the 9L line, had significant levels of alkyltransferase activity and exhibited a relatively flat age-response curve to BCNU. Alkyltransferase activity was not detected in the other 3 cell lines, all of which displayed a similar age response in which G1- and G2/M-phase cells were relatively sensitive to BCNU compared with the response of S-phase cells. We conclude that alkyltransferase activity may overwhelm other determinants that cause cell-cycle phase specificity to BCNU.
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