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Innocuousness and intracellular distribution of PKH67: A fluorescent probe for cell proliferation assessment

  • Cell and Tissue Models
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Summary

PKH dyes were initially developed by Horan et al. to provide appropriate probes for in vitro and in vivo cell tracking. It has been reported for many cell types that PKH bind irreversibly to the cell membrane without significantly affecting cell growth. Thus, these probes provide an opportunity for long-term cell monitoring and the identification of cells of interest among a heterogeneous cell population. An important feature is that upon cell division, the probe is partitioned equally between each daughter cell, making it possible to quantify cell fluorescence by flow cytometry. In this situation, the flow cytometric study of PKH67 characteristics shows that this probe does not affect the main cell-functions such as viability or proliferation. Moreover, the intracellular distribution of PKH67 is demonstrated by following its kinetics of internalization by confocal microscopy. These results present PKH67 as a probe suitable for dynamic analysis of cell proliferation as well as the study of intracellular localization and membrane recycling mechanisms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Dynamique Cellulaire, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Université Joseph Fourier, 38706, La Tronche Cedex, France

    Cécile Rousselle, Vincent Comte, Corinne Alcouffe, Gérard Chancel & Xavier Ronot

  2. Institut Albert Bonniot, INSERM U309, IFR 653, 38706, La Tronche Cedex, France

    Cécile Rousselle, Magali Barbier, Corinne Alcouffe & Xavier Ronot

  3. Equipe Migration Cellulaire et Infiltration Tumorale, Institut Albert Bonniot, 38706, La Tronche Cedex, France

    Magali Barbier

  4. Laboratoire TIMC, UMR CNRS5525, Institut Albert Bonniot, 38706, La Tronche Cedex, France

    Jocelyne Clement-Lacroix

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  1. Cécile Rousselle
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  2. Magali Barbier
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  3. Vincent Comte
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  4. Corinne Alcouffe
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  6. Gérard Chancel
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  7. Xavier Ronot
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Correspondence to Xavier Ronot.

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Rousselle, C., Barbier, M., Comte, V. et al. Innocuousness and intracellular distribution of PKH67: A fluorescent probe for cell proliferation assessment. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 37, 646–655 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1290/1071-2690(2001)037<0646:IAIDOP>2.0.CO;2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1290/1071-2690(2001)037<0646:IAIDOP>2.0.CO;2

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