Cytotoxicity assessment based on the AUC50 using multi-concentration time-dependent cellular response curves.

Although many indices have been developed to quantify chemical toxicity, substantial shortcoming is inherent in most of them, such as observation time dependence, insufficient robustness, and no comparison with the negative control. To assess the extent of exposure of the tested substance, a cytotoxicity assay named AUC(50) was developed to describe the time and concentration-dependent cellular responses. By monitoring the dynamic cytotoxicity response profile of living cells via the xCELLigence real-time cell analysis high-throughput (RTCA HT) system, changes in cell number (named cell index, CI) were recorded and analyzed subsequently.