Monitor morphological drug effects on up to 24 cell cultures simultaneously — 24/7 inside the incubator. No endpoint assay. No cell removal. Continuous kinetic data from first treatment to cell death.
Cytotoxicity assays measure the degree to which a substance damages or destroys cells. They are a fundamental tool in drug discovery, toxicology testing and cancer research — used to predict tissue-specific toxicity and identify leads for anti-cancer therapies.
Traditional endpoint assays (MTT, LDH, Trypan Blue) provide a single snapshot at one time point. zenCELL owl replaces this with continuous brightfield imaging — capturing every morphological change from first drug treatment through to cell death.
Standard cytotoxicity assays miss the full picture. zenCELL owl captures every time point — so you see when drug effects start, how they progress, and at what concentration they become lethal.
Image every 10 minutes throughout the entire assay. Capture onset of growth inhibition, morphological changes, and cell death — at every concentration and every time point retrospectively.
Run 24 drug concentrations, compounds or cell lines in parallel under identical incubator conditions. Dose-response relationships in a single experiment without sequential testing.
No cell removal for imaging. No temperature or CO₂ fluctuations. No contamination risk from repeated handling. Environmental conditions remain stable throughout the entire assay.
5MP brightfield resolution captures granulation changes, cell rounding, detachment and death at single-cell level. Document drug mechanisms with timelapse videos.
Check confluence and morphology from your PC or tablet — without entering the lab. Set confluence alerts and get notified when critical thresholds are reached.
Brightfield imaging requires no fluorescent labels, no staining, no cell lysis. Cells remain viable and undisturbed. Combine with endpoint assays if needed — the cells are still intact.
L929 mouse fibroblast cell cultures were treated with different concentrations of the cytostatic drugs Chloroacetaldehyde (CAA) and Doxorubicin (DOX). zenCELL owl captured the full kinetic dose-effect relationship for both drugs.
Untreated control — L929 cells at 48h
Cytostatic drug treatment — morphology loss
Drug treatment results in growth inhibition, loss of the original cell morphology and changes of intracellular granulation. Finally, drug treatment results in cell death.
A time-dependent dose-effect relationship was observed for both cytostatic drugs — captured automatically by zenCELL owl without a single manual imaging step.
Dose-dependent growth inhibition, loss of cell morphology and cell death. Digital phase-contrast imaging of L929 cells. Scalebar: 200 µm.
Growth inhibition, loss of cell morphology and cell death. Digital phase-contrast imaging of L929 cells. Scalebar: 200 µm.
Application Note — Cytotoxicity Assay
Analysis of cytostatic drug effects with zenCELL owl. Full protocol, data and methodology.
Watch zenCELL owl track drug effects on real cells inside a real incubator. Twice per week via MS Teams. No obligation.
Long term. Parallelized. More detailed.
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