Novel findings obtained with the colony formation assay of normal human cells

Hamada, Nobuyuki*; Sakashita, Tetsuya; Hara, Takamitsu*; Fujimichi, Yuki*

Over the past half century, a colony formation assay has been most commonly used to evaluate cellular radiosensitivity. Our colony formation assay of primary normal human diploid fibroblasts and the analysis of the size and cell numbers in abortive colonies comprising 50 cells and clonogenic colonies comprising 50 cells led to observations that can potentially answer a fundamental question of what is actually being evaluated in the colony formation assay, and a new phenomenon was also unveiled with the colony formation assay whereby the higher the dose the larger the size of colonies arising from irradiated primary normal human diploid ocular lens epithelial cells. This paper shall review these findings.