The use of Ficoll gradient centrifugation to obtain synchronously growing L5178Y cells

Linear Ficoll gradient centrifugation has been used to separate exponentially growing cells according to their position in the cell cycle and to obtain synchronously growing cells. Analysis of the distribution of 3H-thymidine prelabeled cells revealed the optimal separation of the cells in the G1 phase in the gradient prepared from 3--9% solutions. Such G1-rich cell fraction collected from the gradient has proved useful to obtain fairly good synchronization of cell growth as evaluated by the measurement of cell number, 3H-thymidine incorporation and mitotic index.