Author:
Crowley Lisa C.,Waterhouse Nigel J.
Abstract
Colony-forming assays measure the ability of cells in culture to grow and divide into groups. Any cell that has the potential to form a colony may also have the potential to cause cancer or relapse in vivo. Colony-forming assays also provide an indirect measurement of cell death because any cell that is dead or dying will not continue to proliferate. The proliferative capacity of adherent cells such as fibroblasts can be determined by growing cells at low density on culture dishes and counting the number of distinct groups that form over time. Cells that grow in suspension, such as hematopoietic cells, cannot be assayed this way because the cells move freely in the media. Assays to determine the colony-forming ability of hematopoietic cells must therefore be performed in solid matrices that restrict large-scale movement of the cells. One such matrix is soft agar. This protocol describes the use of soft agar to compare the colony-forming ability of untreated hematopoietic cells to the colony-forming ability of hematopoietic cells that have been treated with a cytotoxic agent.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Subject
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Cited by
9 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献