alamarBlue HS and alamarBlue Assays for Cell Viability

alamarBlue HS and alamarBlue Cell Viability Reagents are ready-to-use, non-toxic, resazurin-based solutions that function as cell health indicators by using the reducing power of living cells to quantitatively measure viability. Recommended in cases of extended viability studies or when using a high cell density, Invitrogen alamarBlue HS (High Sensitivity) Cell Viability Reagent is superior in that it not only retains all of the key alamarBlue reagent characteristics, but also provides much higher sensitivity.

Selection guide

alamarBlue HS—the basics

Understand the advantages of alamarBlue HS and why this may be important to your research.

Superior performance

·         Quantitative—provides accurate measurement over time

·         High sensitivity and linearity—detects as few as 20 cells

·         Robust performance—alamarBlue highly referenced for cytotoxicity and viability assays

Fast & simple assay

·         No cell lysis—ideal for use with time course experiments or post-measurement functional assays

·         Flexibility—can be used with primary cells or cell lines, with adherent cells and cell suspensions

·         Scalable—mix-and-read, homogeneous assay enhances speed while minimizing effort

·         Compatible with fluorescence—or absorbance-based instrumentation

Economical and safe to use

·         Economical—requires less reagent to get results comparable to the competition

·         Safe—nontoxic, nonradioactive reagent that is safe for the user, the cells, and the environment

What are alamarBlue and alamarBlue HS?

Analysis of cell proliferation and cytotoxicity is a vital step in evaluating cellular health and in the drug discovery process. alamarBlue is a proven cell viability indicator that uses the natural reducing power of living cells to convert resazurin to the fluorescent molecule, resorufin. The active ingredient of alamarBlue (resazurin) is a nontoxic (Figure 1), cell permeable compound that is blue in color and virtually nonfluorescent. Upon entering cells, resazurin is reduced to resorufin, which produces very bright red fluorescence (Figure 2). Viable cells continuously convert resazurin to resorufin, thereby generating a quantitative measure of viability—and cytotoxicity.

Figure 1. Demonstrated Non-Toxicity of the alamarBlue HS Cell Viability Reagent. U2OS Cells were treated with and without alamarBlue HS for 4 hours. CyQUANT Direct reagent was added to both populations following manufacturer’s instructions. Based on the CyQUANT Direct fluorescence measurements there were no significant differences in fluorescence measurements suggesting alamarBlue HS does not significantly contribute to cellular toxicity. Additionally, when exposed to varying concentrations of gambogic acid the U2OS cells pre-treated with alamarBlue HS displayed similar IC50 values as the control cells.

Figure 2. Metabolically active cells convert resazurin to resorufin, a red-fluorescent indicator. Resazurin is a non-fluorescent indicator dye that undergoes chemical reduction to bright red–fluorescent resorufin in metabolically active cells. The amount of fluorescence produced is proportional to the number of living cells. In alamarBlue HS, the resazurin is highly purified and provides superior performance compared to the standard alamarBlue reagent which has known contamination issues that lead to sub-optimal performance.

alamarBlue has a proven track record as an indicator of cell health and its nontoxic nature permits long-term exposure of cells without negative impact; cells grown in the presence of alamarBlue were found to produce similar numbers of viable cells as control cells, as determined by flow cytometric analysis of CD44, CD45RB, and CD4 antigens.

The alamarBlue HS reagent refers to the fact that the alamarBlue HS reagent contains highly purified resazurin, devoid of any contaminating resorufin which can negatively impact reagent performance. The alamarBlue HS reagent provides a >50% reduction in background signal and >100% signal-to-background ratio increase compared to the standard alamarBlue reagent, while retaining all the key characteristics that make alamarBlue a highly-referenced cell viability and cytotoxicity reagent.

How do I use alamarBlue HS?

Using alamarBlue HS is very easy (Figure 3). Simply add alamarBlue HS mix-and-read solution to your cells, incubate for 1-4 hours, and read the fluorescence or absorbance. The amount of fluorescence or absorbance is proportional to the number of living cells and corresponds to the cells metabolic activity. Damaged and nonviable cells have lower innate metabolic activity and thus generate a proportionally lower signal than healthy cells.

alamarBlue HS is compatible with multiple instrument platforms. After incubation with alamarBlue HS, your samples can readily be measured on fluorescence and absorbance instrumentation. For fluorescence, simply set up your plate reader or fluorescence spectrophotometer using 560/590 nm (ex/em) filter settings. Alternatively, the absorbance of alamarBlue HS can be read on a UV-Vis spectrophotometer at 570 nm.

Finally, analyze results by plotting fluorescence intensity (or absorbance) versus compound concentration. While results are linear and quantitative for both fluorescence and absorbance, fluorescence readings provide higher sensitivity.

Figure 3. How alamarBlue HS works.

Higher sensitivity compared to alamarBlue

The highly purified resazurin used for alamarBlue HS reagent results in a >50% decrease in background fluorescence and a >100% increase in the signal-to-background ratio (Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 4. Significantly lower background fluorescence observed when comparing alamarBlue HS vs alamarBlue. The highly-purified resazurin used for the alamarBlue HS formulation results in a cell viability reagent displaying a background fluorescence reduction in suspension (Ramos), primary cells (HCASMC) and adherent (U2OS) cells.

Figure 5. Performance improvement in signal to background ratio with alamarBlue HS as compared to alamarBlue. Improved cell viability signal to background ratios were displayed with HCASMC (primary cells), Ramos (suspension cells) and U2OS (adherent cells) when using the alamarBlue HS cell viability reagent which contains highly-purified resazurin as compared to the standard alamarBlue formulation.

Larger assay window compared to alamarBlue

The alamarBlue HS reagent displays an extended viability detection time window for a wide variety of organisms and thus can be used with various human and animal cell lines, bacteria, plant, and fungi, resulting in quantitative measurement of cell viability and proliferation (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Much larger dynamic range observed with the alamarBlue HS Cell Viability Reagent which contains highly purified resazurin as compared to the standard alamarBlue formulation. Various concentrations of gambogic acid were added to A549 cells and the changes in viability were detected. The results demonstrate a significant improvement in the dynamic range of the assay when using alamarBlue HS.

alamarBlue HS reagent is recommended in cases of extended viability studies or when using a high cell density, whereas PrestoBlue HS reagent is recommended for quick viability determination (10 min incubation).