Scientists used cells called fibroblasts to study factors that cause nondividing cells in the G0 stage of the cell cycle to reenter the cell cycle and undergo mitosis. In a laboratory, fibroblasts typically grow and divide when they are cultured in a growth medium that contains 10% serum (the liquid part of blood that remains after blood clots). If fibroblasts are cultured for 48 hours in the absence of serum (serum-starvation), they stop dividing and enter the G0 stage of the cell cycle. The scientists divided serum-starved fibroblasts into groups to which they added no serum, 10% serum, or 0.1% serum. Each of the groups with 0.1% serum was also treated to block the production of only one or combinations of four proteins (p16, p18, p21, and p27) that are inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases. The scientists grew the fibroblasts for 48 hours and then measured the amount of DNA replication taking place to determine whether the cells had reentered the cell cycle. The scientists compared each group of cells to the group cultured with 10% serum and plotted the data (Figure 1).