Limitations of the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay when compared to three commonly used cell enumeration assays

Table 2 The coefficient of determination (r ² ) of the four cytotoxicity assays

Cell lines and incubation periods		NRU	MTT	RES	SRB
MCF-7	24 hours incubation	0.901	0.711	0.999	0.992
MDA-MB-231		0.979	0.975	0.998	0.999
MCF-12A		0.846	0.903	0.976	0.999
MCF-7	72 hours incubation	0.994	0.762	0.915	0.999
MDA-MB-231		0.958	0.878	0.843	0.973
MCF-12A		0.986	0.990	0.887	0.985
Average		0.937	0.864	0.934	0.991

The neutral red, MTT, resazurin reduction and SRB assays were performed after 24 or 72 hour incubation on three cell lines (n = 4).

ISSN: 1756-0500