cell density to be seeded? - cytotoxicity studies (Jul/01/2010 )

what is the recommendet cell density to be seeded/cm2, when you want to perform some cytotoxicity/proliferation studies?

proposed performance:
1. seed cells,
2. after over night incubation add compounds to be tested
3. after 24h incubation -> proliferation/apopotosis test


thx for any recommendation

It all depends on the assay, the mechanism of the drug and what sort of plate you are doing your experiments in... for instance 96 well plates with MTT, you want as many cells as you can pack in there as 10000 cells is about the lower limit of detection. If the drug is expected to work on growing cells then you probably want them about 30-60% confluent.

I usually don't go for a cells per area, I usually aim for a % confluence, which is pretty much the same thing.