Comprehension of attachment and multiplication properties by observing individual cell behaviors in anchorage-dependent culture

The behavioral properties of cell attachment and division were characterized by direct observation of individual cells in the culture of murine fibroblasts. At the cell attachment stage in the culture for early 10 h, the extent of cell spreading, which was defined as a ratio of the projected area of each cell against its saturated value, had a relatively broad distribution at 0.25 h, and it shifted to a higher level with elapsed time up to 10 h with narrowing in the distribution. The critical value of the extent of cell spreading was determined to be 0.54 as a threshold at which a cell is assumed to complete its adhesion to culture surface. The ratio of the number of cells with the extent of cell spreading over 0.54 against the total number of examined cells fairly followed the profile of cell adhesion which was obtained by measuring the number of adherent cells on culture surface.

At the cell growth stage in the culture for 20–64 h, doubling time of cell population increased gradually as the culture progressed toward confluence. Generation times (or cell-dividing spans) of individual cells, however, did not show a discriminating dependency on cell concentration and culture time. To clarify the influence of local congestion on the cell division, the generation time was formulated as a function of the number of contact cells around each target cell. Applying the cell placement growth model to estimating the extent of contact inhibition, the reciprocal value of doubling time could be correlated with the average of reciprocal generation times, implying that the doubling time on a cell-population basis is explained by considering the variation in dividing spans of individual cells affected by local contact environment.