Microplate Assays for Cell Viability

‹ Fluorescence Microplate Assays

Microplate assays provide information on entire cell populations rather than tracking the behavior of individual cells. We offer microplate assays for whole cells and assays performed on disrupted cells or cell lysates. Metabolic activity is commonly used as a viability indicator, but for some applications it can be important to assess viability independent of metabolic state, and appropriate assays are listed below. In some cases, cells are required for additional downstream functional analysis, and alamarBlue HS is an excellent nontoxic indicator of viability.

Ready-to-use resazurin assays for microplates

For HTS applications, a viability assay is ideally performed in an add-and-read format, requiring only three steps—addition of reagent, incubation, and measurement of output—with no mixing, washing, or cell lysis required. Add-and-read resazurin-based assays are commonly used to quantify metabolic activity of cells.

In addition to ease of use, resazurin-based assays provide extended linear ranges, ample signal windows, and the flexibility to measure in either endpoint or kinetic mode and with either fluorescence- or absorption-based instrumentation. The endpoint mode is often used in primary screenings, in which the goal is to perform fast screening campaigns to identify hit compounds from large chemical collections. The kinetic mode is more applicable to secondary screenings, in which the time-dependent cytotoxic effects of selected hits are assessed for mechanistic purposes.

alamarBlue and PrestoBlue Cell Viability Reagents are ready-to-use resazurin-based solution that function as a cell health indicator by using the reducing power of living cells to quantitatively measure viability. Upon entering living cells, resazurin is reduced to resorufin, a compound that is red in color and highly fluorescent. We have introduced two new, superior versions of these products—the Invitrogen PrestoBlue HS (High Sensitivity) and alamarBlue HS (High Sensitivity) Cell Viability Reagents—which contain highly purified resazurin that provides a >50% reduction in background signal and >100% signal-to-background ratio increase compared to the standard PrestoBlue and alamarBlue reagents.

PrestoBlue HS reagent is recommended for quick viability determination, whereas alamarBlue HS reagent is recommended in cases of extended viability studies or when using a high cell density.

Expertly detect fluorescence with Thermo Scientific plate readers

High-sensitivity fluorescence detection for 96-1,536 samples can be quickly performed on Fluoroskan or Fluoroskan FL Microplate Fluorometer or Varioskan LUX Multimode Microplate Reader using Invitrogen reagents for optimal detection. Take advantage of automatic dynamic range selection to get optimal gain settings for each individual well and automation capabilities for even higher throughput.

Compare readers

Resources

Posters
Application notes