Proliferation Assay - Should cells be in the logarithmic phase ? (May/20/2010 )

Should cells be in the logarithmic phase, when proliferation assays are performed?
how can the logarithmic phase be determined for a particular cell line?

thanks in advance

Proliferation is growth over time - if you take cell numbers/MTT/DNA content (anything that will show a change with cell number) you should be able to plot curves which should show the standard S curve of proliferation. The steepest part of the curve is logarithmic.

If you want to analyse the cell proliferation you have to forget about MTT.
MTT does not measure cell proliferation. It is an assay to evaluate (qualitatively!) the cell methabolism level only.
Use CFSE + DNA content analysis + Ki-67 + (BrdU)

Denis Baev on Mon Jul 11 19:26:17 2011 said:

Dear Mr. Enthusiast,

I beg to differ from your statement that MTT cannot be used for measure of proliferation. By making measurements at different time points, one can get an idea of cell proliferation.Of course, the fact stands that flow cytometric analysis is by far the most reliable method of proliferation estimation.

Sincerely,
Maverick