A Rapid Agar Dilution Technique for the Estimation of Antitumor-Cell Activity

Abstract

In searching and in extracting antitumor agents of microbial origin, there has been an increasing demand for a rapid and simple method for estimating antitumor entities in culture broth and processing streams. Kikuchi and Matsuzawa reported, in connection with the screening of antitumor substances, an application of in vitro contact and eosin-unstained cell count method¹⁾, and in vitro contact and TTC (2, 4, 5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride) staining method, with²⁾ or without³⁾ succinic acid as a substrate.

Method of determining antitumor-cell action by the agar plate diffusion technique was reported by Yamamoto, et al.⁴⁾ and by Miyamura⁵⁾.

The method herein presented is a simplified agar dilution technique, similar in principle to those reported previously in that the estimation is made with the dehydrogenase activity of tumor cells as the indicator. However, the present technique affords quantitative results in a short period of time, usually within three hours, and requires simpler technique than that of the previous methods.