Whether looking at toxicity of a compound, studying a disease phenotype, or exploring cellular mechanisms, assessing the viability of your cell culture can be a critical tool. A variety of cell viability assay kits are commercially available that are based on colorimetric or luminescent reagents, making readouts straightforward. There are also cytotoxicity assays that can assess cell membrane damage, such as an LDH assay, or measure apoptosis, such as a TUNEL assay. In this example, spinal motor neurons (BX-0100) cultured in 96-well plates were treated with 2 different compounds for 1 day and viability measured using a CellTiter-Glo® Luminescent Cell Viability Assay (Promega). This assay provides a luminescent signal that is proportional to the amount of ATP present in the culture. The amount of ATP, an indicator of metabolically active cells, is directly proportional to the number of living cells present in culture.
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