At OECD Guidance document on using cytotoxicity tests to estimate starting doses for acute oral systemic toxicity tests, ENV/JM/MONO(2010)20 you have justification for using 0.5% of solvent

http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=env/jm/mono(2010)20&doclanguage=en

Hi! regarding cytotoxicity I would prefer DMSO over DMF. Even at 0.1% DMSO I was able to see subtle effects in my cell cultures (mainly hippocampal cells and cell lines like SH-SY5Y or PC12): Usually at this range you will certainly not yield blunt toxicity in conventional assays (LDH, trypan blue etc.). Specifically for DMSO (far below 1%), its antioxidant properties may be an issue. This may be problematic dependant on your research questions. In my experiments DMSO clearly interfered with the regulation of redox-dependent pathways. Therefore I would recommend:

1) To keep the concentration of the solvent as low as possible

2)To ensure, that the negative controls do contain the proper concentration of the solvent.

To be honest in some of my very early experiments I was not clearly aware of point 2 (don´t worry, none of these experiments were ever published). This led to some very confusing results.

Beyond that, the systemic toxicity (in humans) appears to be rather low for DMSO. This substance has been discussed as a potential intravenous treatment for amyloidoses and is routinely used as a (transdermal) carrier for pharmacological agents (I am not quite sure but years ago DMSO was injected to block the cytotoxic effects of cytostatic drugs, which inadvertently entered the tissue). DMF is hepatotoxic!

Good luck!

Hi, I couldn't find an exact reference but am providing some links below, which provides practical experience from various researchers.

http://www.protocol-online.org/biology-forums/posts/20652.html

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_anybody_know_what_is_the_safe_solution_of_DMSO_for_cell_cultures

I have worked with DMSO, and tried to keep it below 0.01%.

Hope it helps..

thx to all for valuable suggestions...

I think its best to establish safe concentration for the cell lines/cell type you are using instead of using someone else's work.