Background on Cell Viability Testing
Cell viability is a measure of the proportion of live, healthy cells within a population. Cell viability assays are used to determine the overall health of cells, optimize culture or experimental conditions, and to measure cell survival following treatment with compounds, such as during a drug screen. Generally, cell viability assays provide a readout of cell health by measuring metabolic activity, ATP content, or cell proliferation. Cytotoxicity assays can also be used to assess cell viability and provide a readout of cell death markers. Cell viability and cytotoxicity assays are important tools for evaluating the response of cells to test compounds of interest.
Cell Viability Test Kits
Cell viability test kits are widely used in various experiments of cell biology, such as the study of growth factors, cytokines and medium components, cytotoxic factors and the activity of lymphocytes. According to different test objects, cell viability test kits are mainly divided into the following categories:
- Cell proliferation test kits: cell proliferation refers to the increase in the number of cells due to cell division (cell division), which is the last step of the cell cycle. Healthy cells proliferate actively, while cells that are stagnating, aging, and dying or dying do not. Therefore, cell proliferation analysis is a useful tool to assess cell viability or cell survival rate by providing a reading of the number of actively dividing cells present in a sample.
- Cytotoxicity test kits: cytotoxicity testing is mainly based on changes in cell membrane permeability. MTT and CCK8 cytotoxicity detection kits are widely used in the detection of cell proliferation and cytotoxicity.
- ATP test kits: as the most important energy molecule, ATP plays an important role in various physiological and pathological processes of cells. ATP is an important indicator of cell metabolism, as well as an important marker molecule of metabolically active cells, and has a good linear relationship with the number of living cells. Therefore, cell counts or cell viability can be measured by measuring ATP content.
Fig 1. Guidelines for cell viability assays. (Kamiloglu S, et al, 2020)
Advantages of Cell Viability Test Kits
- The cell viability test kits are suitable for more than 30 Kind of cell type, such as monocytes, human liver cancer cells (Hep G2), embryonic fibroblasts (Ehd-1), mouse fibroblasts, malignant melanoma (A375), pancreatic cancer (BXPC-3), more than 30 Kind of cell type.
- The operation of the kit is simple, the reading is stable, and the detection speed is fast. It only takes about 10 minutes to complete the detection. There is no need to wash the cells, and there is no need to replace or remove the culture medium. In addition, chemiluminescence is relatively stable, with a drop of no more than 10% within 10 minutes after the start of the reaction, and no more than 30% within 30 minutes.
- This kit has good stability. The reagent is freeze-thaw repeatedly for 5 times and has no effect on the detection effect, and the detection effect is not more than 10% reduced by 10 times of freeze-thaw cycles.
- This kit is flexible and convenient to use. It is not only suitable for the detection of a small number of samples, but also very suitable for high-throughput screening and detection of a large number of samples.
Alfa Chemistry provides a wide range of cell viability test kits to evaluate cell viability by measuring cell metabolic activity, ATP content, cell proliferation, and cytotoxicity measurement. Our kit contains all the reagents and related components required for cell viability testing. The simple and quick scheme design and optimized reagent ratio provide the best cell viability detection experimental analysis scheme for scientific researchers around the world. If you are interested in our products, welcome to contact us for products quotations and more detailed information.
Reference
- 1. Kamiloglu S, Sari G, Ozdal T, et al. (2020) Guidelines for cell viability assays. Food Frontiers. 1(3): 332-349.
It should be noted that our products are for research purposes only. Not suitable for any clinical use.
