Use of Cell-Based Assays for in Vitro Studies of Drugs

Abstract

One of the most recent and interesting applications of cell cultures is their use for set up of in vitro tests to be used for different purposes: screening of new drugs, cytotoxicity and monitoring of certain attributes during drug development. Few but important factors have influenced this new development: one is the possibility to cultivate cells that maintain their functions in microtiter plates and therefore “validate” them as reagents; another one is the achievement in cells handling automation and robotization that makes possible to easily run a lot of samples in a short time. A typical cell-based assay consists of two phases:1) The interaction of the cells with the drug of interest 2) The measurement of the cell affected function (target of the assay) by fluorimetric, ELISA or enzymatic test. In addition, on the same cells, it is possible to do viability test (e.g. MTT test) to have an indication on the “cytotoxic behaviour” of the drug of interest. We report here two examples of cell-based tests used to study the in vitro behaviour of drugs. One is a Caco-2 test for characterization of intestinal absorption of antibiotics. Another one is a macrophage test for studying the immunomodulation of TNF-α.