Cell cycle regulation of human foreskin fibroblasts

Abstract

Therapeutic cloning has broad application prospects in the medical field. However, interspecies cloning efficiency is very low. It is generally believed that G0/G1 stages of cell cycle are more beneficial to cell reprogramming of cloning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of serum starvation, contact inhibition and 2-methoxyestradiol (2-ME) treatment on cell-cycle synchronization in the G0/G1 stage in human foreskin fibroblasts. Our results show that the proportion of G0/G1 cells from the serum-starved group at 3 and 4 days was significantly higher when compared with 2 days and cells not subjected to serum starvation (97.3% and 97.99% vs. 93.8% and 81.59%, respectively; p 0.05). After the recovery of cells that were frozen for 4 to 5 months, the proportion of cells in the G0/G1 phase was significantly lower when compared with normal cells (75.14 vs. 81.59%; p < 0.05). Our results show that serum-starvation for 3 days is the most effective method for synchronizing human foreskin fibroblasts in the G0/G1 phase, which is may more suitable as donor cells for cloning. Key words: Cell cycle synchronization, 2-methoxyestradiol, serum starvation, culture to confluence, human foreskin fibroblast, induced pluripotent stem cells.