Flow cytometric single cell-based assay to simultaneously detect cell death, cell cycling, DNA content and cell senescence

Cell death, cell cycle arrest and cellular senescence are three distinct cellular responses that can be induced by oncogene activation and diverse anti-cancer agents, and this often requires the action of the tumour suppressor TP53. Within a cell population, or even within an individual cell, these processes are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It is therefore important to measure all these processes simultaneously. However, current assays generally visualise only one or at best two responses, often only detecting the dominant one. Here, we present a novel flow cytometric assay that allows simultaneous assessment of cell viability and cell cycling through measurement of DNA content and DNA synthesis, and markers of cell senescence at the single cell level. We demonstrate that this assay can be performed on both human and murine cells, that are either cancerous or non-transformed, and can help to dissect complex cell fate decisions. We believe that this experimental tool will be useful for the study of diverse biological processes.