Cell production in mouse intestinal epithelium measured by stathmokinetic flow cytometry and Coulter particle counting.

The rate of cell production in the crypt population of the intestinal epithelium has been determined previously. However, the complex geometry of the tissue makes determination of the rate of cell production in the epithelium as a whole, by traditional methods, extremely difficult if not impossible. In this report, stathmokinetic flow cytometry was used for the direct determination of the rate of cell production in the mouse intestinal epithelium. Mice were given an intraperitoneal injection of colcemid (2.5 mg/kg) and killed 25, 45, 65 and 90 min after injection. The percentage of cells with 4N DNA (G2 and M phase cells) in the epithelium at each time interval was determined with flow cytometry. The results were fitted by linear regression and the rate of cell production derived from the slope of the regression line. Thus, the rate of cell production was found to be 1.86% +/- 0.44 (means +/- SE) per hour in the jejunal epithelium and 1.66% +/- 0.48 per hour in the colonic epithelium. The turnover time of the epithelium as a whole was determined from the inverse of the rate of cell production, and was found to be 53.8 h +/- 12.6 in jejunum and 60.2 h +/- 17.3 in colon. Coulter particle counting was used to measure the number of cells in the intestinal epithelium. The number of epithelial cells was found to be 1.90 X 10(7) +/- 3.11 X 10(5) cells per cm2 in the jejunum and 8.98 X 10(6) +/- 8.05 X 10(5) cells per cm2 in the colon.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)