Cytotoxicity Assays

Fast and sensitive cytotoxicity kits based on either the activity of lactate dehydrogenase or adenylate kinase released by dying/dead cells, or generally the detection of DNA, protein or lysosomes in dead/damaged versus healthy/intact cells.

Cytotoxicity assays are essential tools in drug discovery. In vitro single parameter cytotoxicity assays, such as using tetrazolium salt (WST), sulforhodamine B (SRB) or crystal violet (CV) are widely used in cultured cellsin order to assess the cytotoxicity of potential drug candidates as these methods are fast, reproducible, and do no require using living mammals during early drug discovery stages. However, the most critical problem of using single parameter assays is the determination of their IC50 data offers a limited perspective and can lead to erroneous assumptions or erroneous, unsucessful results when the selected candidates are used in more complex models (false positives). On the other hand, if the cytotoxicity assay is not selected appropriately, false negative compounds that are actually cytotoxic may be easily missed. Thus, the analysis of candidates as potential cytotoxic compounds is usually more comprehensive when two or more cytotoxicity assays are performed. Additionally, SRB, WST and CV cyototoxic assays offer relatively inexpensive, accurate, yet reliable results in a timely manner.