The field of cell cycle studies is dominated by the incorrect idea that one can treat an entire culture to produce a synchronized culture. If this predominant method cannot work, at all, then an enormous amount of work on the cell cycle must be re-evaluated. Here, criteria are presented for determining whether a culture is 'truly' synchronized. No whole-culture 'synchronization' method has been shown to produce a 'truly' synchronized population of cells rather than a population of cells sharing some singular and particular property within that collection of cells. It is demonstrated and explained why it is impossible to truly synchronize cells using whole-culture methods. Such whole-culture methods produce cells that may have some properties in common for all the cells in a group, but these cells are not actually and truly synchronized. Synchronized cultures can only be produced by a selection method where cells of a particular cell cycle age or size are removed from the cell population and the remainder is discarded. The field of cell cycle analysis is chained to the incorrect idea of whole-culture synchronization methodology. It is important to break the chains that lead to many incorrect results regarding the cell cycle. It must be recognized that an enormous amount of funds, time, energy, and thought is wasted using the methods that do not synchronize cells at all.
Keywords: artifacts of synchronization; cell cycle; cell cycle events; selection methods; whole-culture methods.
© 2019 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.