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. 1972 Jul;69(7):1685–1689. doi: 10.1073/pnas.69.7.1685

Excretion of Deoxyribonucleic Acid by Lymphocytes Stimulated with Phytohemagglutinin or Antigen

John C Rogers *, David Boldt †, Stuart Kornfeld †, Sister Ann Skinner †, C Robert Valeri *
PMCID: PMC426778  PMID: 4505646

Abstract

When human lymphocytes are cultured in the presence of phytomitogens, 70-90% of the cells undergo blast transformation and synthesize DNA. However, less than 40% of these lymphocytes actually undergo mitosis while 35-90% of the newly synthesized DNA is excreted into the media. The release of DNA by the cells is selective since experiments with [14C]uridine indicate that RNA is not lost into the culture media. DNA excretion occurs under many culture conditions. The excreted DNA has an estimated molecular weight of 3 to 12 × 106 as determined by gel filtration on Sepharose 2B. It forms a single sharp peak at a density of 1.055 g/cm3 when examined by sucrose density gradient centrifugation, suggesting that the DNA is complexed to protein or lipid.

Keywords: mitogenesis, pulse labeling, density gradient centrifugation, DNase

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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