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Review

Cell Viability Assays

Terry L Riss  1 , Richard A Moravec  1 , Andrew L Niles  1 , Sarah Duellman  1 , Hélène A Benink  1 , Tracy J Worzella  1 , Lisa Minor  2
Sarine Markossian  1 , Abigail Grossman  1 , Hannah Baskir  1 , Michelle Arkin  2 , Douglas Auld  3 , Christopher Austin  4 , Jonathan Baell  5 , Kyle Brimacombe  1 , Thomas D.Y. Chung  6 , Nathan P. Coussens  7 , Jayme L. Dahlin  8 , Viswanath Devanarayan  9 , Timothy L. Foley  10 , Marcie Glicksman  11 , Kirill Gorshkov  12 , Stefan Grotegut  13 , Matthew D. Hall  1 , Samuel Hoare  14 , James Inglese  1 , Philip W. Iversen  15 , Madhu Lal-Nag  16 , Zhuyin Li  12 , Jason R. Manro  13 , James McGee  17 , Allison Norvil  13 , Mackenzie Pearson  13 , Terry Riss  18 , Peter Saradjian  19 , G. Sitta Sittampalam  20 , Michael A. Tarselli  21 , O. Joseph Trask Jr.  22 , Jeffrey R. Weidner  23 , Mary Jo Wildey  24 , Kelli Wilson  1 , Menghang Xia  1 , Xin Xu  1
, editors.
In: Assay Guidance Manual [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): Eli Lilly & Company and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; 2004.
[updated ].
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Review

Cell Viability Assays

Terry L Riss et al.
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Excerpt

This chapter is an introductory overview of the most commonly used assay methods to estimate the number of viable cells in multi-well plates. This chapter describes assays where data are recorded using a plate-reader; it does not cover assay methods designed for flow cytometry or high content imaging. The assay methods covered include the use of different classes of colorimetric tetrazolium reagents, resazurin reduction and protease substrates generating a fluorescent signal, the luminogenic ATP assay, and a novel real-time assay to monitor live cells for days in culture. The assays described are based on measurement of a marker activity associated with viable cell number. These assays are used for measuring the results of cell proliferation, testing for cytotoxic effects of compounds, and for multiplexing as an internal control to determine viable cell number during other cell-based assays.

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References

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