Comparative analysis of colchicine induced micronuclei in different cell types in vitro.

In the present study we analyzed the induction of micronuclei (MN) by colchicine, at different treatment times, in four histogenetically different cell cultures: human skin fibroblasts (HSF), bovine skin fibroblasts (BSF), bovine bladder fibroblasts (BBF) and human skin epithelial cells (HK), developed and characterized in our laboratory. The frequencies of dead cells, nuclear budding and mitotic index were also evaluated. The HSF and BSF cell lines showed similar frequencies of micronucleated cells (4.7% and 4.9%, respectively) at 96 h of treatment time. The BBF cell line showed the lowest frequency of micronucleated cells (2.6%) and HK did not show any MN. The studied cell lines differed in their responses to colchicine. The data revealed the relevance of utilization of other end-points as growth curves, dead cells, mitotic index and other nuclear alterations for accurate analysis of the effect of agents that disturb cell cycle or are cytotoxic.