[Spontaneous sister chromatid exchanges in cultured African green monkey cells]

The frequencies of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) were studied in primary kidney cell culture, diploid cell line 5018, pseudodiploid spontaneously transformed cell line 4647 and hypotetraploid cell line 455 of the African green monkey. Bromodeoxyuridine was used at a concentration of 10 micrograms/ml. The slides were stained with acridine orange and Giemsa for sister chromatid differentiation. In the first three cases, SCE were scored in 100 metaphases of each culture. The distribution of cells from the number of SCE differs from the normal law and was approximated fairly well by the lognormal distribution pattern. The geometrical means of SCE per cell were 6.90 for cells in primary culture, 9.26 for cells of diploid line 5018; 4.50 for cells of pseudodiploid transformed line 4647 and 9.76 for cells of hypotetraploid transformed line 455.