Videomicrofluorometry on living cells and discriminant factorial analysis to study cell cycle distributions.

After a rapid overview of the approaches used to study cell cycle, a fluorescent digital imaging microscopy method is proposed. This method is improved by a factorial analysis relying on the evaluation of several parameters recorded on each living cell. Single lympho-blastoid living cells are labeled with three fluorescent markers: Hoechst 33342 for nuclear DNA, Rhodamine 123 for mitochondria and Nile Red for plasma membrane. For each cell, morphological and functional information parameters are obtained. A typological analysis is used to separate control cells into four groups: G0-G1, S, G2+M and polyploid cells Gn. These control cells define a learning population used to analyze untreated and adriamycine treated cells as supplementary individuals in a discriminant factorial analysis. Such an approach allows to accurately evidence the change of the values of some cellular parameters.