Real-Time Cell Proliferation Assessment

Label-free and in real-time, the automated HoloMonitor^® Cell Proliferation Assay provides time-lapse-based growth curves of adherent cells by cell count and confluence.

Cell proliferation assays are widely applied in biomedical sciences, especially for potency and cytotoxicity testing of drugs and chemicals. The assays are commonly used to understand how drug dose levels affect cells over time, typically by creating cell growth curves to determine the inhibitory concentration at half maximum effect (IC₅₀).

Destructive Cell Proliferation Assessment

To assess cell growth at various treatment concentrations, the number of cells in multiple samples with increasing treatment concentrations are traditionally counted each day over several days, using time-consuming manual cell counting. Automated cell counters have made cell counting less labor-intensive, but the cells still need to be destructively prepared and transferred to the cell counter.

To make cell proliferation assessment more convenient, rapid chemometric assays have been developed, such as MTT, XTT, AlamarBlue and Neutral Red. These indirect assays measure metabolic activity or other cellular properties that are assumed to correspond to the number of cells.

Non-Destructive Cell Proliferation Assessment

By repeatedly counting the number of cells in a cell culture, automated image‐based methods provide direct and hence more relevant assessment of cell proliferation than the widely used chemometric methods.

However, to be a viable option, time-lapse‐based adherent cell counting must be label‐free and fully automated — not relying on manual or user-aided cell identification and segmentation. Furthermore, to be compatible with established laboratory workflow, it is vital that any novel cell proliferation assay can be robustly performed using standard cell culture microplates.

Kinetic Cell Proliferation Using Quantitative Time-lapse Imaging

For various microplate formats, the HoloMonitor Cell Proliferation Assay conveniently records non-invasive quantitative time-lapse images of multiple cell cultures inside your incubator. While the time-lapse image sequences are automatically recorded, the assay presents real-time growth curves by cell count and cell confluence at user-selected intervals.

Saving the Few and Precious

As cell proliferation assessment using HoloMonitor is entirely non-invasive and does not require assay-specific sample preparation, the recorded time-lapse image sequence can be reused to determine other cellular characteristics associated with potency and cytotoxicity. Using, for example, the HoloMonitor Cell Morphology Assay, Cell Motility Assay and the HoloMonitor Dose Response Assay, cell morphology, motility and dose response can, in addition, be quantified without requiring additional experiments, saving precious cells and lab hours.