Cell viability and apoptotic assays to assess drug efficacy

For the development of the effective treatment of cancer, it is important to determine the efficacy of a therapeutic candidate. The therapeutic candidate was first tested by the in vitro methods/assays and followed by the in vivo/preclinical studies. The effectiveness of cell viability and apoptotic in vitro assays for the determination of the efficacy of a therapeutic candidate is evident in various drugs approved commercially for the management of cancer. The number of healthy cells represents the cellular viability, and the ability of the cell to divide to create new progeny represents cellular proliferation. These assays use diverse classes of colorimetric reagents (tetrazolium), reduction resazurin and the fluorescent signal generated by protease substrates, and a different real-time assay to determine the live cells for days in in vitro analysis. This chapter focused on the assays for cell viability and apoptosis to determine the efficacy of the drug candidate.