There are two major ways of in vitro cytotoxicity testing:

1. Viability tests that utilize the metabolic activity of living cells, by measuring the conversion of e.g. colorimetric or fluorometric reagents. 

2. Cell membrane integrity tests that detect components of damaged cells released into the medium or use membrane-impermeable dyes that only enter cells once the membrane is compromised.

Which one you choose should be based on your experimental setup and whether you expect interference with one of the mechanistic approaches. Ideally, you should run both in parallel.

Our instaCELL Cytotox assay kit is an easy and reliable solution for biocompatibility testing of medical devices according to ISO 10993-5.

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