READY-2-GO
CELL HEALTH
ASSAY SERVICE

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS OF CELL HEALTH

Cell viability and proliferation are critical pieces of information for assessing the safety and toxicity of drugs and therapeutic candidates. Depending on the disease of interest, drug-development campaigns may seek to enhance cell repopulation - such as in degenerative diseases - or inhibit it - such as in cancer. Pathways that lead to cell death are complex and can manifest as apoptosis or necrosis, which are two mechanistically and morphologically distinct processes that both contribute to the general measurement of cell viability. Evaluating the impacts of drug candidates on these metrics are required for moving therapeutic candidates into the clinic, but distinguishing between these processes can prove challenging. Furthermore, dead cells in vitro often detach from the growth surface, rendering accurate measurements of viability and proliferation with antibody-based detection difficult due to cell loss exacerbated by pipetting and wash steps.

Cells are seeded and cultured in 384-well plates. They are treated with paclitaxel (inhibitor of proliferation) and staurosporine (toxicant) along with your test articles for 4, 24, and 48 hours, at which points the cells are stained and fixed. Cells are then imaged on a high-content microscope, and images are analyzed to provide you quantitative assessments of your compounds’ effects on cell proliferation, apoptotic activation, and viability.