Cell Counting Made Simple

The Auto T4 simultaneously calculates cell concentration and % viability for cultured cells stained with trypan blue.

Trypan blue viability is a dye exclusion method that utilizes membrane integrity to identify dead cells. The dye is unable to penetrate healthy cells, so they remain unstained. Dead cells have a compromised cell membrane that is permeable to the trypan blue dye. Dead cells are stained blue and display as dark cells in the Cellometer software with bright field imaging.

NCI-60 is a group of 59 human cancer cell lines (originally 60) developed by the National Cancer Institute for screening purposes. Isolated from various tissues (bone marrow, lung, ovary, brain, skin, breast, colon, kidney, prostate), the cell lines are used extensively to screen experimental cancer drug compounds and study tumor development.

Counting 1 x 10⁶ cells takes approximately 5 minutes with a manual hemacytometer. Counting live and dead cells sometimes takes twice as long. The Cellometer Auto T4 Cell Counter calculates cell count and concentration for live and dead cells and % viability in just 30 seconds.

The Cellometer %CV (Coefficient of Variation), including sample preparation, was well under 5% for most cell lines tested. The CVs for manual counts ranged from 7% to 20%. Automated cell counters remove inter-operator variability and subjectivity from cell counts to generate more precise data.

Cellometer Disposable Counting Chambers consist of two independent enclosed chambers with a precisely controlled height. Cell suspension of 20 microliters is loaded into the chamber using a standard single channel pipette. The chamber is inserted into the Cellometer cell counter and the cells are imaged. This simple sample loading and analysis method is ideal for fragile cells.