Principle of Assay
The most common approach to determining the cell cycle stage (G1, S, and/or G2/M) is based on measurement of cellular DNA content. As cells progress through the cell cycle, cells in the G1 phase have one set of paired chromosomes and are uniform with respect to DNA content. On the other hand, the amount of DNA begins to double during S phase, so that the amount of DNA is between one and two times the amount in G1. Cells in G2/M phase have double the amount of DNA compared to cells in G1 and two sets of paired chromosomes. This kit utilizes a nuclear dye, the binding of which to nucleic acids in the cell results in a fluorescence signal, which is proportional to cellular DNA content, providing a convenient and accurate determination of the percentage of cells in each phase of the cell cycle.
