Educate

Apoptosis, a form of programed cell death, is directed by activated caspases. Caspases are cysteine proteases that can cleave other proteins, and upon activation, create a positive-feedback cascade, which ensures the cell will undergo apoptosis.

Measurement of BrdU incorporation with anti-BrdU antibodies

The thymidine analog 5′-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU) is a popular reagent in various scientific disciplines ranging from cancer to neuroscience research. The chemical is frequently added to samples, such as mammalian cell lines, and subsequently incorporated into newly synthesized DNA during replication. 

CytoTrack™ Cell Proliferation Assays

CytoTrack cell proliferation assays are designed to efficiently stain live cells for excellent resolution of each cell division generation.

Bio-Rad offers a broad range of easy-to-use and versatile cell viability assays for assessing the cell health of fixed and unfixed cells in flow cytometry and cell sorting experiments.

Autophagy Assay, Red Detection Kit allows for the detection and monitoring of in vitro development of autophagy in living cells.

Apoptosis is a highly regulated process of programmed cell death which, unlike necrosis, does not promote inflammatory responses and is beneficial to an organism. 

The fast, non-toxic, simple, and reliable cell proliferation and viability reagent

alamarBlue is a cell proliferation assay that provides a rapid, sensitive, and economical way to quantitatively measure cell proliferation and cytotoxicity in various human and animal cell lines. It can also be used to study mycobacteria, bacteria, and fungi.

While some assays utilize antibodies to study cell health, proliferation, cell cycle or apoptosis, other types of experiments can rely on non-antibody based methods of assessment, often called non-antibody chemical probes. These are reagents that localize to an organelle or indicate health based on chemical characteristics like hydrophobicity, charge, size and enzymatic activation.

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is an essential process by which multi-cellular organisms ensure that critically damaged or mutated cells are removed. The process is regulated by a complex interplay of proteins and, until reaching “the point of no return”, can be halted or reversed at any point.

It is critical to understand the degree of cell death in any flow cytometry assay and exclude those cells from the analysis.