Analysis of X-ray-induced cell-cycle perturbations in mouse osteosarcoma cells: a two-signal cell-cycle model

The effects of X-irradiation on mouse osteosarcoma cells have been studied by time-lapse cinematography and the resulting pedigrees have been analysed statistically. It is shown that the irradiation treatment causes three types of cell kinetic lesions: cell death (disintegration), cell sterilization (failure to divide) and proliferation delay. The first two lesions are the most important with regard to survival of the irradiated cell in a clonal assay. Of these two lesions, sterilization appears to be highly correlated for sister cells, while this is not true for cell disintegration. This indicates that cell survival in a clonal assay may be a function of the ratio of the incidences of these two types of lesions. The X-ray-induced proliferation delay was studied in terms of intermitotic time distributions, mother-daughter correlation and sibling correlation in relation to the current cell-cycle phase at the time of treatment. This analysis shows that the effects of irradiation on these cell-cycle characteristics is highly cell-cycle-dependent. A qualitative model to account for the observations is presented.