A rapid method for the flow microfluorometric determination of the DNA content per cell is described. Incubation of cells in a hypotonic solution of propidium iodide results in disruption of the cell membrane and rapid staining of nuclear chromatin. DNA distribution histograms generated from cells stained by this method are identical to those generated after fixation and RNase digestion. In contrast to some earlier described methods, the present technique is rapid (5 min of processing), requires a minimal amount of material, and avoids formation of cell clumps.

Overall, these results indicate that cells growing under anaerobic conditions respond with greater sensitivity to the effects of 2-DG on cell cycle inhibition and cell death than those growing under aerobic conditions. This supports our contention that glycolytic inhibitors added to standard chemotherapeutic protocols should increase treatment efficacy by selectively killing the slow-growing cells, which are found in the hypoxic portions of solid tumors, while sparing most of the normal cells that are also slow-growing but are living under aerobic conditions.

In this article we describe a novel effect of formamide on DNA of apoptotic nuclei and present a method for specific detection of apoptotic cells based on this effect. Our observations show that formamide induces DNA denaturation in apoptotic nuclei but has no such effect on DNA of non-apoptotic cells. Formamide-induced DNA denaturation combined with detection of denatured DNA with a monoclonal antibody (MAb) against single-stranded DNA made it possible to specifically identify the apoptotic cells. This procedure produced intense staining of the condensed chromatin in the apoptotic nuclei. In contrast, necrotic cells from cultures treated with sodium azide, saponin, or hyperthermia did not bind this antibody, demonstrating the specificity of the formamide-MAb assay for the apoptotic cells. However, TUNEL stained 90-100% of necrotic cells in all three models of necrosis. Because the MAb did not stain cells with single-or double-stranded DNA breaks in the absence of apoptosis, we conclude that staining of the apoptotic nuclei is not influenced by DNA breaks and is induced by specific changes in condensed chromatin, such as damage to the DNA-histone interactions. Importantly, the formamide-MAb technique identified apoptotic cells in frozen sections and in histological sections of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues.

Overall, our in vitro results suggest that 2-FG is more potent than 2-DG in killing hypoxic tumor cells, and therefore may be more clinically effective when combined with standard chemotherapeutic protocols.

The goal of our study was to determine whether an apoptosis assay used after short-term drug exposure could predict selective toxicity to cancer cells. To this end we compared the effect of eight anticancer drugs and 10 toxic compounds without known antitumor activity in cultures of human breast cancer cells and normal diploid fibroblasts by Apoptosis ELISA and growth inhibition assays. There was an overlap in concentration values of drugs and toxins inhibiting proliferation in cancer cells. In contrast, Apoptosis ELISA clearly distinguished between the two groups of compounds. Anticancer drugs induced apoptosis in cancer cells at 0.0015-0.5 microM, while toxins were effective at much higher concentrations of 8.0-50.0 microM. Moreover, six out of the 10 toxins did not induce apoptosis in cancer cells. The normal:cancer cell (N:C) ratio for growth inhibiting concentrations was in a similar range for anticancer drugs and toxins. The N:C ratio for apoptosis inducing concentrations was 33-200 for anticancer drugs and 1.3-3.0 for toxins. Our data indicate that apoptosis assays could be used to detect selective toxicity of anticancer drugs by determining apoptosis induction in cancer cells or through a comparison of apoptosis-inducing concentrations in normal and cancer cells.