Iodo- and bromodeoxyuridine are excised at different rates from DNA of mouse tongue keratinocytes in vitro.

The development of antibodies to iododeoxyuridine (IdU) and bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) has increased interest in the use of these compounds in cell biology. However, little is known about their metabolism in vivo and in vitro. In this paper we show that, contrary to the impression gained from earlier studies, these compounds are not stably incorporated into DNA of mouse tongue epithelial cells in vitro but are removed, with turnover times of 1.0 days (BrdU) and 3.8 days (IdU).