The term cell necrobiology is introduced to comprise the life processes associated with morphological, biochemical, and molecular changes which predispose, precede, and accompany cell death, as well as the consequences and tissue response to cell death. Two alternative modes of cell death can be distinguished, apoptosis and accidental cell death, generally defined as necrosis. The wide interest in necrobiology in many disciplines stems from the realization that apoptosis, whether it occurs physiologically or as a manifestation of a pathological state, is an active mode of cell death and a subject of complex regulatory processes. A possibility exists, therefore, to interact with the regulatory machinery and thereby modulate the cell's propensity to die in response to intrinsic or exogenous signals. Flow cytometry appears to be the methodology of choice to study various aspects of necrobiology. It offers all the advantages of rapid, multiparameter analysis of large populations of individual cells to investigate the biological processes associated with cell death. Numerous methods have been developed to identify apoptotic and necrotic cells and are widely used in various disciplines, in particular in oncology and immunology. The methods based on changes in cell morphology, plasma membrane structure and transport function, function of cell organelles, DNA stability to denaturation, and endonucleolytic DNA degradation are reviewed and their applicability in the research laboratory and in the clinical setting is discussed. Improper use of flow cytometry in analysis of cell death and in data interpretation also is discussed. The most severe errors are due to i) misclassification of nuclear fragments and individual apoptotic bodies as single apoptotic cells, ii) assumption that the apoptotic index represents the rate of cell death, and iii) failure to confirm by microscopy that the cells classified by flow cytometry as apoptotic or necrotic do indeed show morphology consistent with this classification. It is expected that flow cytometry will be the dominant methodology for necrobiology.

Described are four widely used procedures to analyze the cell cycle by flow cytometry. The first two are based on univariate analysis of cellular DNA content following cell staining with either propidium iodide (PI) or 4',6'-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) and deconvolution of the cellular DNA content frequency histograms. This approach reveals distribution of cells in three major phases of the cycle (G1 vs S vs G2/M) and makes it possible to detect apoptotic cells with fractional DNA content. The third approach is based on the bivariate analysis of DNA content and proliferation-associated proteins. The expression of cyclin D, cyclin E, cyclin A, or cyclin B1 vs DNA content is presented as an example. This approach allows one to distinguish, for example, G0 from G1 cells, identify mitotic cells, or relate expression of other intracellular proteins to the cell cycle position. The fourth procedure relies on the detection of 5'-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation to label the DNA-replicating cells.

Background: DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in chromatin, whether induced by radiation, antitumor drugs, or by apoptosis-associated (AA) DNA fragmentation, provide a signal for histone H2AX phosphorylation on Ser-139; the phosphorylated H2AX is denoted ␥H2AX. The intensity of immunofluorescence (IF) of ␥H2AX was reported to reveal the frequency of DSBs in chromatin induced by radiation or by DNA topoisomerase I (topo 1) and II (topo 2) inhibitors. The purpose of this study was to further characterize the druginduced (DI) IF of ␥H2AX, and in particular to distinguish it from AA ␥H2AX IF triggered by DNA breaks that occur in the course of AA DNA fragmentation. Methods: HL-60 cells in cultures were treated with topotecan (TPT), mitoxantrone (MTX), or with DNA crosslinking drug cisplatin (CP); using multiparameter flow and laser-scanning cytometry, induction of ␥H2AX was correlated with: 1) caspase-3 activation; 2) chromatin condensation, 3) cell cycle phase, and 4) AA DNA fragmentation. The intensity of ␥H2AX IF was compensated for by an increase in histone/DNA content, which doubles during the cell cycle, and for the "programmed" H2AX phosphorylation, which occurs in untreated cells. Results: In cells treated with TPT or MTX, the increase in DI-␥H2AX IF peaked at 1.5 or 2 h, and was maximal in Sor G 1 -phase cells, respectively, for each drug. In cells treated with CP, compared with TPT, the ␥H2AX IF was less intense, peaked later (3 h) and showed no cell cyclephase specificity. In the presence of phosphatase inhibitor

The term cell necrobiology is introduced to comprise the life processes associated with morphological, biochemical, and molecular changes which predispose, precede, and accompany cell death, as well as the consequences and tissue response to cell death. Two alternative modes of cell death can be distinguished, apoptosis and accidental cell death, generally defined as necrosis. The wide interest in necrobiology in many disciplines stems from the realization that apoptosis, whether it occurs physiologically or as a manifestation of a pathological state, is an active mode of cell death and a subject of complex regulatory processes. A possibility exists, therefore, to interact with the regulatory machinery and thereby modulate the cell's propensity to die in response to intrinsic or exogenous signals. Flow cytometry appears to be the methodology of choice to study various aspects of necrobiology. It offers all the advantages of rapid, multiparameter analysis of large populations of individual cells to investigate the biological processes associated with cell death. Numerous methods have been developed to identify apoptotic and necrotic cells and are widely used in various disciplines, in particular in oncology and immunology. The methods based on changes in cell morphology, plasma membrane structure and transport function, function of cell organelles, DNA stability to denaturation, and endonucleolytic DNA degradation are reviewed and their applicability in the research laboratory and in the clinical setting is discussed. Improper use of flow cytometry in analysis of cell death and in data interpretation also is discussed. The most severe errors are due to i) misclassification of nuclear fragments and individual apoptotic bodies as single apoptotic cells, ii) assumption that the apoptotic index represents the rate of cell death, and iii) failure to confirm by microscopy that the cells classified by flow cytometry as apoptotic or necrotic do indeed show morphology consistent with this classification. It is expected that flow cytometry will be the dominant methodology for necrobiology. Cytometry 27:1–20, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.