Abstract

MTT ASSAY IN CYTOTOXICITY-A REVIEW

Laura S. L.*, Mythreyi R., Rukmanidevi D. and Ramya R.

ABSTRACT

The cell based assays are widely used in many effects like cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, signal transduction, enzyme activity, reporter gene activity, receptor occupancy, receptor binding, antibody (ADCC) and complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC). The MTT assay is a well-characterized method, also simple to use and popular in worldwide laboratories can be used to determine the cytotoxicity. The functional state of the cell is its mitochondrial activity which reflects the cell viability can be assayed by MTT colorimetric assay. An optimized commercial kits consist of, solutions of MTT, also solubilization reagent, MTT reagent powder. The MTT assay has a major application in the measurement of drug sensitivity in established cell lines also primary cells. The HTC/A-MTT hybrid assay is successful, since the HTCA assay is complicated, time-consuming, costly and applicable for a limited number of human solid tumors. However, the MTT assay leads to a high background due to contamination by normal cells (especially in solid tumors), which can reduce tetrazolium dye also. Cytocompatibility studies can be performed with the help of MTT assay. Tetrazolium reduction assays are often inaccurately mentioned as measuring cell proliferation without the use of proper controls to confirm effects on metabolism. The MTT assay has been proved to be a very sensitive, precise, convenient and rapid test method for the quantitative cytotoxicity evaluation.

Keywords: Cytotoxicity, MTT colorimetric assay, Mitochondrial activity, HTC/A-MTT hybrid assay, Cytocompatibility studies.