Family trees representing the finitely proliferative nature of cultured rat liver cells.

Family trees of rat liver epithelial-like cells in primary culture were obtained by cinemicrographic analysis. With few exceptions the proliferative profiles reconstituted from these family trees showed limited proliferation. This limitation was not due to post-confluence inhibition of proliferation or to nutritional deprivation during time lapse cinemicrography, but to the finite potential of clonal proliferation. In these family trees a cell entered mitosis, incomplete division, death, or a long interphase with no detectable termination. These family trees successfully related the life phases of the individual cells that compose the population to the limited nature of proliferative potential as observed in clonal cell populations.