Applications
- Cytotoxicity assays
- Chemosensitivity testing
- Toxicity and drug screening
Benefits
- Non-radioactive method
- Highly sensitive
- Easy and fast procedure
- Suited for high-throughput assays
Cytotoxicity Kits
LDH Cytotoxicity Kit
PromoKine's Colorimetric LDH Cytotoxicity Kit provide a fast, sensitive, and precise alternative to the radioactive [3H]-thymidine and the [51Cr] release assays. It is based on the measurement of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. LDH is a stable cytoplasmic enzyme that is present in all cells and rapidly released from the cytosol of damaged cells into the surrounding medium. LDH activity is determined by a coupled enzymatic reaction: LDH oxidizes lactate to pyruvate, triggering the conversion of the yellow tetrazolium salt WST into the water-soluble red formazan dye. The increase in the amount of formazan produced in culture medium can be analyzed spectrophotometrically at 450 or 500 nm, and correlates directly to the increase in the number of lysed cells. PromoKine's LDH Cytotoxicity Kit II includes the more sensitive and stable WST tetrazolium salt in the enzymatic coupling reaction, improving the signal to background ratio. Thus, regular culture medium containing 10% serum can directly be used in the assay and LDH activity can be easily quantified at OD 450 nm.
The kit can be used for many different in vitro cell systems to study and quantitate cytotoxicity/cytolysis. It is easy to perform and take less than 1 hour.
AK Cytotoxicity Kit
The bioluminometric AK Cytotoxicity Kit is based on the measurement of adenylate kinase (AK), a ubiquitous protein present in all cells that is rapidly released into the culture medium upon damage to the plasma membrane. The simple one-step procedure involves two chemical reactions. First, the adenylate kinase released from the damaged cells catalyses the conversion of ADP to ATP. The second reaction utilizes luciferase to catalyze a reaction between the ATP, oxygen, and luciferin producing light. The light can be measured using a luminometer or beta counter. This highly sensitive assay allows rapid quantitation of plasma membrane damage for evaluation of cell death or cytotoxicity events, and it is well suited for automation and high throughput.