Time-lapse cinematographic analysis of beryllium--lung fibroblast interactions.

The proliferative response to beryllium chloride of cells in a population of human lung fibroblasts was quantitatively assessed using time-lapse cinematography. A dose of 0.02 microgram Be/ml, known to decrease the growth rate of fibroblasts, affects an estimated 75% of the cells in the population, increasing their interdivision time (IDT) by approximately 5 hr. The differences in mean 1n(IDT) between treated and control cells were essentially constant for comparable culture sizes ranging from 25 to 250 cells. There was no correlation between mother and daughter cell IDTs in control or treated culture at any culture size. IDTs of sister pairs were highly correlated in control cultures at selected culture sizes while sister pair IDTs of treated cultures were not. The data suggest that while beryllium alters the IDT of fibroblasts, an effect not related to culture size, any given cell affected by beryllium does not impart effects of the mineral to its progeny.