A comparative investigation of the antimitotic action of 2-mercaptoethanol and colcemid on V-79 Chinese hamster cells.

The current study was performed to characterize the antimitotic action of 2-mercaptoethanol (MET) on mammalian cells. At concentrations of 2.5 x 10(-2) m, MET arrests V-79 Chinese hamster cells in metaphase. Smaller concentrations (from 5 x 10(-3) m) only produce a mitotic block after several hours, only arresting those mitoses which have gone through one cell cycle in the presence of MET. The accumulation of mitoses by MET is smaller in comparison with colcemid, explained by an effect reducing the number of cells which enter mitosis. In contrast to colcemid, MET-concentrations which do not lead to a mitotic block cause a delay in proliferation. It was shown, by means of the BUdR-labelling method that cells in the presence of colcemid concentrations which arrest mitosis again enter interphase and become polyploid, whereas MET leads to an irreversible arrest of mitosis and does not produce polyploidy in V-79 cells.