cell viability assay

Decades of Discovery: How the NCI-60 Revolutionized Cancer Drug Screening

Posted on by Kendra Hanslik

The National Cancer Institute’s NCI-60 drug screening panel, comprised of 60 diverse human cancer cell lines, has been a cornerstone in advancing cancer research and drug discovery since its inception in the late 1980s. Developed in response to the need for more predictive and comprehensive preclinical models, the NCI-60 facilitates the screening of thousands of compounds annually, aiming to identify potential anti-cancer drugs across a broad spectrum of human cancers. This article traces the origins, development, and evolution of the NCI-60 panel, highlighting its significant role in advancing our understanding of cancer and therapeutic agents.  

Continue reading “Decades of Discovery: How the NCI-60 Revolutionized Cancer Drug Screening”

Insects and Science: Optimizing Work with Sf9 Insect Cells

Posted on by Shannon Sindermann

Insects are a keystone species in the animal kingdom, often providing invaluable benefits to terrestrial ecosystems and useful services to mankind. While many of them are seen as pests (think mosquitos), others are important for pollination, waste management, and even scientific research.

Insect biotechnology, or the use of insect-derived molecules and cells to develop products, is applied in a diverse set of scientific fields including agricultural, industrial, and medical biotechnology. Insect cells have been central to many scientific advances, being utilized in recombinant protein, baculovirus, and vaccine and viral pesticide production, among other applications (5).

Therefore, as the use of insect cells becomes more widespread, understanding how they are produced, their research applications, and the scientific products that can be used with them is crucial to fostering further scientific advancements.

Primary Cell Cultures and Cell Lines

Cell culture - Cell lines - Insect Cells

In general, experimentation with individual cells, rather than full animal models, is advantageous due to improved reproducibility, decreased space requirements, less ethical concerns, and a reduction in expense. This makes primary cell cultures and cell lines essential contributors to basic scientific research.

Continue reading “Insects and Science: Optimizing Work with Sf9 Insect Cells”

The Race to Develop New Therapeutics Against Coronaviruses

Posted on by Michele Arduengo

Once the purview of virology researchers, the word “coronavirus” is now part of the vernacular in the mainstream media as reports of quarantined cruise ships (1) and makeshift hospitals (2) fill our online news feeds. While there is currently no approved anti-viral treatment for coronavirus infection (3), a team led by researchers from Vanderbilt University recently published work characterizing the anti-CoV activity of a compound, which they now plan to test against 2019-nCoV (4).

Developing New Therapeutics Against Coronaviruses

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are enveloped, single-stranded RNA viruses that exhibit cross-species transmission—the ability to spread quickly from one host (e.g., civet) to another (e.g., human). Scientists classify CoVs into four groups based on the nature of the spikes on their surface: alpha (α), beta (ß), gamma (γ) and delta (δ, 1). Only the alpha- and beta-CoVs can infect humans. Four coronaviruses commonly circulate within human populations: Human CoV 229E (HCoV229E), HCoVNL63, HCoVOC43, and HCoVHKU1. Three other CoVs have emerged as infectious agents, jumping from their normal animal host species to humans: SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and most recently, 2019-nCoV (5).

TE micrograph of a single MERS-CoV
Digitally colorized transmission electron micrograph reveals ultrastructural details of a single Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) virion. Image credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

The need for an effective, broad spectrum treatment against HCoVs, has been brought into sharp focus by the recent outbreak of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV; 6).

Continue reading “The Race to Develop New Therapeutics Against Coronaviruses”

A Cell Viability Assay for Today

Posted on by Isobel Maciver

Valued for ease of use and scalability, plate-based, bioluminescent cell viability assays are widely used to support research in biologics, oncology and drug discovery.

Cell viability assays are a bread-and-butter method for many researchers using cultured cells —everyday lab tools that are a part of many newsworthy papers, but rarely make news themselves.

Over time, cell viability assays have become easier to use and more “plug ‘n play”. Among modern assays, luminescent plate-reader based systems have been a favorite for several years because of their superior sensitivity, robustness, simple protocols and uncomplicated equipment requirements (all you need is a plate-reading luminometer). These qualities combine to allow easy scalability and adaptability from bench research to high throughput applications.

CellTiter-Glo® Luminescent Cell Viability Assay is an accepted go-to viability assay for many researchers. The assay measures ATP as an indicator of metabolically active cells. A quick search on Google Scholar returns 3,990 CellTiter-Glo results for 2017 and over 500 so far in January and February of 2018. A sampling of these recent publications gives a snapshot of some of the ways the CellTiter-Glo assay is used to support key areas of research today.

Does a treatment kill cells?

The obvious application of a cell viability assay is to understand whether cells are alive. In cancer research, the CellTiter-Glo assay is often used to confirm killing of tumor cells and to verify that normal cells survive. Therefore, these assays are a key part of the evaluation and screening of drug candidates and other therapies for cancer. Many papers reporting use of CellTiter-Glo are developing and evaluating the effectiveness of novel anti-cancer treatments. Continue reading “A Cell Viability Assay for Today”

Shining a Bright Light on Deep Questions in Biology with Bioluminescence

Posted on by Michele Arduengo
artists view inside a cell

Search the PubMed database for “dual-luciferase” and citations abound. The Dual-Luciferase® Reporter Assay is a powerful tool that allows researchers to ask a multitude of questions about gene control and expression in a system that itself could be normalized and internally controlled. For more than 15 years, firefly and Renilla luciferases  have formed the basis of a range of powerful assays and research tools for scientists who are asking questions about the deep and complex genetic and cellular story associated with cancer. Here we talk a bit of about bioluminescent chemistries, some of the newest bioluminescent tools available, and how some of these tools can be used to probe the deeper questions of cell biology, including cancer biology.

Continue reading “Shining a Bright Light on Deep Questions in Biology with Bioluminescence”