Abstract
Abercrombie and Heaysman1 coined the term “contact inhibition” to describe the arrest of locomotion of animal cells which are in contact with one another. It was based on various parameters such as the behaviour of fibroblasts migrating from confronting explants, speed of movement in relation to numbers of contacts between cells, and nuclear overlap counts. Phase contrast cinematography of living cells by Abercrombie and Ambrose2 later confirmed that the inhibition of movement depended on contact between cells. During these experiments it was found that certain sarcoma cells were less sensitive to inhibition than normal fibroblasts, and that they moved freely over one another and over normal cells3.
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References
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STOKER, M., RUBIN, H. Density Dependent Inhibition of Cell Growth in Culture. Nature 215, 171–172 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/215171a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/215171a0
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