A critical assessment of the use of microculture tetrazolium assays to measure cell growth and function.

Microculture tetrazolium assays (MTAs) are being widely applied to probe the relationships between cell survival, growth, and differentiation and also to investigate associations between compromised cell metabolism, oxidative stress, and programmed cell death as occurs in apoptosis. MTAs rely upon the cellular reduction of tetrazolium salts to their intensely coloured formazans. The resulting colorimetric assays form the basis of exceptionally...