The incidence of apoptotic and necrotic cell death was compared in CHO, SF9 insect cells and murine plasmacytoma (J558L) and hybridoma (TB/C3) cells during in vitro cultivation in batch cultures. Acridine orange staining and fluorescence microscopy enabled the visualization of a classic morphological feature of apoptotic cell, the presence of condensed and/or fragmented chromatin. DNA gel electrophoresis was employed to show an additional characteristic of the process, the endonuclease-mediated fragmentation of DNA into multiples of 180 base pairs. The levels of apoptosis at the end of batch cultures of plasmacytoma and hybridoma cell lines were found to be 60% and 90% of total dead cells, respectively. However, employing the above-mentioned techniques, the biochemical and morphological features of apoptosis were not found in CHO and SF9 insect cells. Some factors affecting the induction of apoptosis during the batch culture of the hybridoma and plasmacytoma cell lines were identified. The most effective inducer was found to be glutamine limitation, followed by (in order of importance) serum limitation, glucose limitation, and ammonia toxicity. Blockage of the cell cycle of the plasmacytoma and hybridoma cells using thymidine resulted in the induction of apoptosis. This has important implications for the development of cell culture processes that minimize cell division and thereby increase specific productivity.

Lifetimes of states in the ground-state bands of (70)Se and (72)Se were measured using the recoil-distance Doppler shift method. The results deviate significantly from earlier measurements, requiring a revision of the conclusions drawn from a recent Coulomb excitation experiment concerning the shape of (70)Se. The new results lead to a coherent picture of shape coexistence in the neutron-deficient selenium and krypton isotopes. The coexistence and evolution of oblate and prolate shapes in this mass region is for the first time consistently described by new Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov-based configuration-mixing calculations which were performed using the Gogny D1S interaction.

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In continuation of our work on the plant Echinops echinotus Roxb. (Compositae) (1), we report here the isolation of apigenin, apigenin 7-O-glucoside, and a new acylfiavone glucoside from the flowers of E. echinatus. The ethyl acetate fraction of the alcoholic extract of the flowers (3kg) of Echinops echinatus was chromatographed over an SiO2 gel column. The C6H6-EtOAc (1:1) and EtOAc eluates furnished apigenin (22 mg) and its 7-O-glucoside (31 mg) and the EtOAc-MeOH (20: 1) eluates gave light yellow granules of an acylfiavone glucoside (74 mg) designated as echitin (1).

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