In Technical Services, we frequently answer questions about whether a kit will work with a particular type of sample. An easy way to find out if other researchers have already tested your sample type of interest is to search a citation database such as Pub Med for the name of the kit and your specific sample type. We also have a searchable peer-reviewed citations database on our web site for papers that specifically cite use of our products. And on many of our product pages, you can find a list of papers that cite use of those products. In Technical Services, we are happy to help you in this search and let you know if scientists here at Promega have tested a particular application or sample type. This information provides a good starting point to optimize your own experiments.
One common question is “can the Caspase-Glo® Assays be used with tissue homogenates?” While Promega has not tested the Caspase-Glo® Assays with tissue homogenates, scientists outside of Promega have used the assays with tissue homogenates with success. As with almost all of our kits, Resources are provided on the catalog page including a list of Citations. As an example, here is a link to the Citations for the Caspase-Glo® 3/7 Assay Systems. We also have an article highlighting a citation on detecting caspase activities in mouse liver. A variety of lysis buffers have been used to make tissue homogenates for this application. To avoid nonspecific protein degradation, it is useful to include a protease inhibitor cocktail in the lysis buffer. The use of protease inhibitors doesn’t usually affect our assay chemistries. Additionally, many commercially available protease inhibitor sets can be used that do not contain caspase inhibitors. It is important to consider the specificity of the kit being used and include proper controls to ensure that the luciferase reaction is performing as expected. For more information on citations and example protocols, feel free to contact us here at Technical Services and we can help get you started with your sample type.
One piece of advice you will get from our Technical Services and R&D Scientists with regard to cell-based assays is to pay attention to what you are doing. Sounds obvious, but sloppiness can easily enter into the equation. Do you always count your viable cells with a hemocytometer and trypan blue exclusion before you split a culture? Do you always make sure that each well of your plate or plates contain the same number of cells? Two of our scientists, Terry Riss and Rich Moravec, published a paper demonstrating how decisions you make in experimental setup can ultimately affect the results you obtain. A natural consequence of this is difficulty replicating experiments if you didn’t pay attention to the details during the initial experimental setup. 
Life is complicated. So is death. And when the cells in your multiwell plate die after compound treatment, it’s not enough to know that they died. You need to know how they died: apoptosis or necrosis? Or, have you really just reduced viability, rather than induced death? Is the cytotoxicity you see dose-dependent? If you look earlier during drug treatment of your cells, do you see markers of apoptosis? If you wait longer, do you observe necrosis? If you reduce the dosage of your test compound, is it still cytotoxic? 