ABSTRACT
Cell-based assays are experimental tools constructed to serve as predictive models for in vivo biology. Although cell-based assays are far from perfect, by choosing physiologically relevant model systems they demonstrate utility for testing large numbers of compounds during drug discovery and investigating signaling pathways (Ekwall et al. 1998). The predominant applications of cell viability assays in high-throughput screening (HTS) are to indicate potential in vivo toxicity of candidate compounds or to serve as internal controls in a multiplex format to normalize the results of other assays to the number of viable cells remaining at the end of the experimental treatment.
