Electrophoretic Mobilities of Tissue Culture Cells in Exponential and Parasynchronous Growth

Abstract

IT has been reported^1,2 that tumour cells have a higher net negative charge than their normal counterparts and that the net negative charge of tumour cells increases with increased invasiveness. It was further reported that decreased mutual adhesiveness of cells is correlated with increased surface charge³. From observations of electrophoretic mobilities of rat liver cells⁴ and mouse fibroblasts⁸ it was suggested that increased negative charge is associated with increased growth rate, and Eisenberg et al.⁶ showed that cell populations with increased growth rate have increased heterogeneity in electrophoretic mobilities. Cook et al.⁷ inferred from the small scatter of electrophoretic mobilities of individual Ehrlich ascites tumour cells that ‘the electrokinetic properties of the tumour cell surface were independent of the state of the nucleus’. This communication describes an attempt to relate the electrophoretic mobility of cells to their stage in the mitotic cycle.