Spectrophotometric quantitation of anchorage-dependent cell numbers using the bicinchoninic acid protein assay reagent.

A rapid and convenient method is described for the determination of the actual and relative number of adherent cells in tissue culture. The cell lines human melanoma C32, ATCC CRL 1585, mouse melanoma B16-F10, and pig epithelial LLC-PK1, suspended in Dulbecco's minimum essential medium containing no serum, were allowed to adhere to fibronectin adsorbed to wells of a 96-well microtiter plate. Nonadherent cells were removed by aspiration, wells were washed, and adherent cells were solubilized with 200 microliters of the bicinchoninic acid (4,4'-dicarboxy-2,2'-biquinoline) protein assay reagent. Plates were heated to 60 degrees C for 30 min and absorbances read at 562 nm using a microtiter plate reader. A linear correlation was observed between the number of adherent cells in the range 2-8 X 10(5)/ml cells added and the protein content of the adherent cells as measured by the BCA protein reagent. The assay procedure gave absorbance values in the range of 0.100 to 1.30 making the method highly sensitive and reproducible. Blank wells containing only coupled protein and no cells gave little or no absorbance. Cell adhesion was fibronectin specific since little or no cell attachment was observed when microtiter plates were coupled with bovine serum albumin. Similar results were obtained with other cell types such as platelets. These results indicate that measurement of total cellular protein using the BCA protein reagent can be a rapid and sensitive assay for the detection and quantitation of adherent cells.