Resolving Cell Cycle Speed in One Snapshot with a Live-Cell Fluorescent Reporter.

ABSTRACT: Cell proliferation changes concomitantly with fate transitions during reprogramming, differentiation, regeneration, and oncogenesis. Methods to resolve cell cycle length heterogeneity in real time are currently lacking. Here, we describe a genetically encoded fluorescent reporter that captures live-cell cycle speed using a single measurement. This reporter is based on the color-changing fluorescent timer (FT) protein, which emits blue fluorescence when newly synthesized before maturing into a red fluorescent protein. We generated a mouse strain expressing an H2B-FT fusion reporter from a universally active locus and demonstrate that faster cycling cells can be distinguished from slower cycling ones on the basis of the intracellular fluorescence ratio between the FT's blue and red states. U

SUBMITTER: Eastman AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7418154 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature