RE: Help about BrdU

From: Plett, P Artur (pplett@iupui.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 11 2001 - 14:37:23 EST


Hola Martha

I agree with the comments given to you in a previous reply. We have pulsed
human Bone Marrow cells for 30 minutes and gotten a good population with
BrdU. Longer than a couple hours labeling seemed to be toxic to the cells.
We found that 2M HCl worked fine.
Recently I have used a "home-brew" variation of the Pharmingen BrdU kit that
uses fixing and permeabilization in conjunction with DNAse, to stain for PI
(FL3), BrdU-FITC and a PE and an APC surface antigen. It has worked very
well, and although the phase distinction of PI is not quite as good as the
HCl method, G0/G1 and G2/M were distinct peaks.
I'd be happy to send you a protocol

**********************
Artur Plett, PhD
Post-doctoral fellow
IU School of Medicine Div. of Hematology/Oncology
Indianapolis, IN 46202


-----Original Message-----
From: Leigh Eward [mailto:rosemarythyme80@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 5:28 PM
To: cyto-inbox
Subject: Re: Help about BrdU



Hello Martha,
     With regards to question 1) a pulse-label of 8 hrs is likely much
longer than necessary for a culture with a 22 hr doubling time.  We pulse
cell lines with similar doubling times for 1 hr or less.  As for the 72hr
(Kg1A), I would recommend trying a range of pulse-labelling times from 2-4
hrs.  Your concentration of BrdU (10uM) seems appropriate.  One word of
caution-- optimize and use the smallest pulse-labelling time possible.
Bromodeoxyuridine can be "disturbing" to cells in culture...
     With regards to question 2), we use a protocol which uses 4N HCl with
very good results.  (One technical point to note-- if your stock HCl is 12N
(for instance) it is critical to dilute the HCl immediately prior to
staining).
     Lastly, an older reference which seems to be quite appropriate
(although there are many good papers on this subject) would be Tsurusawa et
al. (1988), "Flow cytometric analysis by bromodeoxyuridine/DNA assay of cell
cycle perturbation of methotrexate-treated mouse L1210 leukemia cells."
They have no trouble using PI in conjunction with BrdU to distinguish cell
cycle position.
     Good luck!
         Leigh Eward
         Florida Institute of Technology
         Cell Biology




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