Biophysical Journal 42: 17-23 (1983)
© 1983 the Biophysical Society

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Motility of mouse fibroblasts in tissue culture.

ABSTRACT

The growth and motion of mouse L-cells in vitro have been studied by means of time-lapse photography. In particular, the mitotic period and the motility, defined in terms of [R2], the mean square displacement of an ensemble of cells, have been measured as a function of temperature. The motility is a function of the phase of the cell cycle. For approximately the first one-eighth of the mitotic period the motility is well described as a random walk with persistence, the duration of the persistence being determined by the time of extension of the filopodic spindle. The temperature dependence of the diffusion constant follows the Arrhenius factor. The mitotic period, which varies exponentially as (1/T), exhibits a large variance, and the time difference in replication of daughter pairs follows approximately a Poisson distribution with a mean difference of 138 min at T = 37 degrees C. There is no evidence of mirror symmetry in the motion of daughter pairs for fibroblast cells plated in vitro in Corning tissue culture flasks.