Culture media and species-related variations in the requirement of 5-bromodeoxyuridine for differential sister-chromatid staining.

Various concentrations of 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BdrU) ranging from 0.01 to 10.0 microgram/ml were tried for finding the minimal concentration required for differential staining of sister chromatids in lymphocytes of man, muntjac and cattle grown in three commonly used culture media, namely TC 199, Dulbecco's MEM and Ham's F-10. The lymphocytes grown in TC 199 required the lowest concentration of BrdU whereas it was highest for the lymphocytes grown in F-10. The minimal concentration varied for the 3 species studied, and it was not related to their DNA content. The differing amounts of thymidine and folic acid present in the various culture media seemed to account for the difference in the quantity of BdrU required for eliciting differential staining. Staining may also have depended on the intracellular nucleotide pool and/or on the difference in the substitutable dT sites of the genomes.