- Cytotoxicity is the quality of being toxic to cells.
- XXT Cytotoxicity assays are widely used by the pharmaceutical industry to screen for cytotoxicity in compound libraries.
Researchers, as in Nanotechnology, can either look for:
- Cytotoxic nano-based materials, if they are interested in developing a nanomedicine that targets rapidly dividing cancer cells, for instance.
- Or they can screen "hits" from initial high-throughput nanoparticle screens for unwanted cytotoxic effects before investing in their development as a nanomedicine.
- Assessing cell membrane integrity is one of the most common ways to measure cell viability and cytotoxic effects. Compounds that have cytotoxic effects often compromise cell membrane integrity.
- Vital dyes, such as trypan blue or propidium iodide are normally excluded from the inside of healthy cells; however, if the cell membrane has been compromised, they freely cross the membrane and stain intracellular components.
- Alternatively, membrane integrity can be assessed by monitoring the passage of substances that are normally sequestered inside cells to the outside.
- Protease biomarkers have been identified that allow researchers to measure relative numbers of live and dead cells within the same cell population.
- The live-cell protease is only active in cells that have a healthy cell membrane and loses activity once the cell is compromised and the protease is exposed to the external environment.
- The dead-cell protease cannot cross the cell membrane, and can only be measured in culture media after cells have lost their membrane integrity.
- Cytotoxicity can also be monitored by measuring the reducing potential of the cells using a colourimetric reaction, or using ATP content as a marker of viability. Such ATP-based assays include bioluminescent assays in which ATP is the limiting reagent for the luciferase reaction.
- A label-free approach to follow the cytotoxic response of adherent animal cells in real-time provides the kinetics of the cytotoxic response rather than just a snapshot like many colourimetric endpoint assays.