Autonomously Bioluminescent Mammalian Cells for Continuous and Real-time Monitoring of CytotoxicityTingting Xu 1, Dan M. Close 2, James D. Webb 3, Steven A. Ripp 2,3, Gary S. Sayler 1,2,3
1The Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2490 BioTech, Inc., 3The Center for Environmental Biotechnology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Mammalian cells expressing the bacterial bioluminescence gene cassette (lux) produce light autonomously. The resulting bioluminescent dynamics upon chemical exposure have been demonstrated to reflect the treatment effects on cellular growth and metabolism, making these cells an inexpensive, continuous, real-time toxicity screening tool that can easily be adapted for high-throughput automation.
