Changes in the cell cycle during culture of mouse-Chinese hamster cell hybrids

Cell cycle studies, using PLM analysis, were carried out on a mouse-Chinese hamster cell hybrid and its derivatives which stably retained all parental chromosomes during the year of study. Parameter estimates were obtained from the PLM curves, using conjugate gradient curve fitting procedures. The hybrid initially grew very slowly, and all phases (especially G1) were longer than those of either parent. During propagation, mean generation time decreased progressively, and the phase times approached those of the mouse parent (which had the longer G1 and S). DNA replication could be scored separately in mouse and hamster chromosome sets, initially termination was highly asynchronous, but during growth asynchrony was progressively reduced as DNA synthesis in the hamster set was prolonged. We conclude that cell hybrids may undergo progressive modifications of the cell cycle, even in the absence of significant chromosome segregation, and suggest that such changes may at least partly account for the great variety of relationships between the growth rates and phase times of parent and hybrid cells which have been reported. Because of the complexity of these changes in the cycles of interspecific cell hybrids, we believe that somatic cell genetic analysis of the regulation of the cell cycle would be more usefully applied to intraspecific hybrids whose parents differ in only one specific cycle characteristic.