Simple, Fast Determination of Viability by Staining Cells with Propidium Iodide

Cellometer Vision incorporates image based cell counting
and fluorescence detection in a compact and easy-to-use
instrument. Cellometer Vision is ideal for many cell population
characterization assays such as rapidly determining viability by
staining cells with propidium iodide.

Cell viability is routinely tested in cell culture laboratories and
used in many assays such as cell proliferation, cytotoxicity, and
tumor killing activity. In the traditional viability method of
trypan blue exclusion, live cells exclude the dye as the
membrane is impermeable, but dead cells uptake the dye
due to the lack of an intact cell membrane. Viability is then
determinedby manually counting the stained sample in a
hemacytometer,a time consuming and labor intensive
process. More importantly, trypan blue stained samples have
to be analyzed within 3-5 minutes, as longer incubation will
increase blue colored cells. Trypan blue staining may result in
an overestimate of viable cells especially for low viability
samples.

Reliable and accurate viability testing can also be done using
propidium iodide (PI), a fluorescent dye. Cellometer Vision was
developed to automatically count total cells and propidium
iodide fluorescence labeled dead/dying cells for fast, simple
PI viability determination.

Using proprietary algorithms, Cellometer Vision’s robust
operating software accurately analyzes cell images,and
generates this data in less than 60 seconds typically. Cell
images and all analysis data, including cell size distribution
histograms, can be saved or exported to Excel for further
analysis.