Is there any substitute for MTT? I have to do an MTT assay but I am unable to find it!
Hey, there are other derivates like XTT or WST (whose products are water soluble in contast to MTT's), but need auxiliary electron carriers and they are much more expensive than the standard MTT. If you meant you can't find it in you supplier's catalogue, try Thiazolyl Blue Tetrazolium bromide, that is a synonym. For Sigma, the Article number is M5655.
If you are not restricted to reductase activity, i can recommend the neutral red assay as an alternative, which is easy, cheap and reliable in my experience.
I really like PrestoBlue (http://www.invitrogen.com/site/us/en/home/brands/Molecular-Probes/Key-Molecular-Probes-Products/PrestoBlue-Cell-Viability-Reagent.html). It is quick if you have a good number of cells, can be left to develop for hours if you have a really low number of cells (and doesn't have the same background problems as MTT) and can be read off with either fluorescence or absorbance.
You can try CCK assay. Its really simple
http://www.dojindo.com/TechnicalManual/Manual_CK04.pdf
Alamar Blue assay will be able to give you indication on cell metabolism as well. the sample is recyclable. So actually you can reduce the number of sample for the testing. You can use the same sample for different time point.
Adherent cell cytometry offers live cell quantification methods either per gating of cell boundaries or using fluorescent dyes. Either way, you can obtain repeated reads (ie time points) from an individual well.
May be you can do resazurin assay. Alamar Blue contains resazurin and
additional compounds to prevent the over reduction of resazurin to a non fluorescent product. These additives also slow the rate of generation of the fluorescent product. Consequently, the alamar blue assay requires longer incubation times compared to resazurin.
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