Journal of Immunological Methods 1995-09-25

A simple, rapid and sensitive fluorimetric assay for the measurement of cell-mediated cytotoxicity.

L Virág, C Kerékgyártó, J Fachet

Index: J. Immunol. Methods 185(2) , 199-208, (1995)

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Abstract

A fluorimetric method using 4-methylumbelliferyl heptanoate (MUH) has been developed for detecting cell-mediated cytotoxicity and cell proliferation. The assay is based on the hydrolysis of the fluorochrome (MUH) by intracellular esterases of viable cells resulting in the production of highly fluorescent 4-methylumbelliferone that can be measured in a microplate fluorimeter. Because of a similarity to the principle of the widely used colorimetric MTT assay, a comparison was made between the two assays when measuring cell proliferation and LAK cell cytotoxicity to different target cell types. The results have shown that the MUH assay represents a method for evaluating both cell-mediated cytotoxicity and cell proliferation which is completely comparable to the MTT method. The rapidity of the new cytotoxicity assay, 5 h in contrast to 9 h for the MTT assay, its applicability to both adherently and nonadherently growing target cells and its high accuracy due to the avoidance of centrifugation steps make this method a serious contender for replacing conventional radioactive techniques.