A recent paper in PLOS One demonstrated real-time cytotoxicity profiling of approximately 10,000 chemical compounds in the Tox21 compound library, using two Promega assays, RealTime-Glo™ MT Cell Viability Assay and CellTox™ Green Cytotoxicity Assay. This is exciting to me, a science writer working at Promega; exciting because it’s tricky figuring out how to write about […]
What if you could uncover a small but significant cellular response as your population of cells move toward apoptosis or necrosis? What if you could view the full picture of cellular changes rather than a single snapshot at one point? You can! There are real-time assays that can look at the kinetics of changes in […]
Luciferase reporter assays are essential tools in molecular and cellular biology, offering sensitive and quantitative means to study gene expression, transcriptional regulation, signal transduction pathways, and cellular responses to various stimuli. With multiple luciferase reporters and detection reagents available, how do you know which one fits your specific workflow or readout needs? Choosing a reporter […]
From enzyme activity to gene expression, light-based assays have become foundational tools in life science research. Among these, fluorescence and bioluminescence are two of the most widely-used approaches for detecting and quantifying biological events. Both rely on the emission of light, but the mechanisms generating that light—and the practical implications for experimental design—are quite different. […]
Luminescent live-cell assays are powerful tools for cellular biology research. They offer both qualitative and quantitative insights into processes such as gene expression, cell viability, metabolic activity, protein and small molecule interactions, and targeted protein degradation. But what if you could go beyond the numbers and actually see what is happening in your cells? With […]
Originally posted May 25, 2017. Updated 2022 You are studying the effects of a compound(s) on your cells. You want to know how the compound affects cell health over a period of hours, or even days. Real-time assays allow you to monitor cell viability, cytotoxicity and apoptosis continuously, to detect changes over time. Why use […]
Understanding how a compound or drug affects cellular pathways often requires measuring kinetic changes over an extended period of time—from several hours to days. Live-cell kinetic cell-based assays that measure cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis and other cellular pathways are great for collecting real-time data. You don’t necessarily need expensive equipment to run these types of […]
When we think of viruses, we often think of diseases, pandemics and death. Our impression of viruses is that they are “bad”. But viruses could also be a possible cure for the deadliest disease in modern history: cancer. The therapeutic effects of “good” cancer-killing oncolytic viruses have been documented over a century ago. Records from […]
We have all been hearing a lot about RT-PCR, rRT-PCR and RT-qPCR lately, and for good reason. Real-Time Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) is the technique used in by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to test for COVID-19. Real-time RT-PCR, or quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR)*, is a specialized PCR technique that visualizes the amplification […]
Cannabinoids. What are they? Sometimes, Wikipedia can give a nice definition: A cannabinoid is one of a class of diverse chemical compounds that acts on cannabinoid receptors in cells that alter neurotransmitter release in the brain. Ligands for these receptor proteins include the endocannabinoids (produced naturally in the body by animals), the phytocannabinoids (found in […]
