We have starved primary fibroblasts in DMEM without any serum. The control fibros seemed to become mobile. They would round up, move, flatten out, repeatedly. In a cell line derived from a patient with a particular mutation, this did not happen at all. Has anyone seen this phenomenon with primary fibros before? We were quite surprised to see that happen and don't really know what it means.
If I understand correctly, primary fibroblasts were cultured in DMEM without serum. The questions are how long cells were "starved" and what was the origin of cells? Assuming that cells became "round" following the incubation and attached again (became flat), it could mean that cells underwent a round of mitosis. Additional information is needed to address the questions.
We actually have an unrelated project on mitosis in the lab and these cells were clearly not dividing. The rounded up, moved by elongating, repeating this process. The rounding happened within a few hours of starvation.
Intriguing. I believe that microscopic images/time-lapse photography of cell cultures could document the phenomenon. If reproducible (in other labs), it may have a significant outcome.
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