Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
1
pubmed:dateCreated
1995-3-27
pubmed:abstractText
Microculture tetrazolium assays are being widely exploited to investigate the mechanisms of both cell activation and cell damage. They are colorimetric assays which are based upon the bioreduction of a tetrazolium salt to an intensely coloured formazan. We contrast the responses obtainable with two new tetrazolium salts, MTS and XTT, when used on the rat lymphoma cell line (Nb2 cells), which has been activated by human growth hormone. These tetrazolium salts, unlike the more commonly used MTT, form soluble formazans upon bioreduction by the activated cells. This has the advantage that it eliminates the error-prone solubilisation step which is required for the microculture tetrazolium assays which employ MTT. Bioreduction of XTT and MTS usually requires addition of an intermediate electron acceptor, phenazine methosulphate (PMS). We found that the XTT/PMS, but not the MTS/PMS, reagent mixture was unstable. Nucleation and crystal formation in the XTT/PMS reagent mixture, prepared in DPBS, could occur within 1-3 min. This resulted in a decline in XTT-formazan production and manifested itself in the microculture tetrazolium assay as both poor within-assay precision and serious assay drift. Several features of the system suggested that the formation of charge-transfer complexes between XTT and PMS accounted for this instability. No such instability was encountered when MTS and PMS were mixed. We demonstrate that MTS/PMS provides microculture tetrazolium assays for hGH which are free from these serious artefacts and which are uniquely precise. In conclusion we therefore advocate the use of MTS in preference to XTT for the new generation of microculture tetrazolium assays.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Feb
pubmed:issn
0022-1759
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:day
13
pubmed:volume
179
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
95-103
pubmed:dateRevised
2006-11-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1995
pubmed:articleTitle
Microculture tetrazolium assays: a comparison between two new tetrazolium salts, XTT and MTS.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Molecular Pathology, University College London, UK.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Comparative Study, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't