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Guide to cell health assays

Understand your options when you need a cell viability, cytotoxicity, proliferation, cell cycle, or apoptosis assay.

The analysis of cell viability, cytotoxicity, cell cycle state, cell proliferation, and cell death is critical to most cell-based studies.

Understand your options, and choose the right assay to fit your experimental needs.

Cell health guide

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Learn more with our resources:

Cell viability assay guide

Including MTT, MTS, resazurin, and similar assays, mitochondrial membrane potential-dependent dyes, esterase cleaved dyes, ATP and ADP assays, and assays that measure glycolytic flux and oxygen consumption.

Cytotoxicity assay guide

Including LDH enzyme leakage assays, and membrane-impermeable dyes like 7-AAD.

Cell proliferation and cell cycle assay guide

Including assays using dye dilution, BrdU/EdU, and DNA staining dyes. These are used to monitor the growth of a cell population, detect generations of daughter cells, or analyze the cell cycle state of a cell population. You can use also these tests to assay cell viability.

Apoptosis assay/cell death analysis guide

Such as Annexin V, TUNEL, caspase assays and CRISPR engineered apoptosis pathway cell lines.

Remember: no one method gives a perfect view of cell viability, proliferation, or cell death. It is almost always most effective to combine several different methods.