Colorimetric in vitro evaluation of T-cell cytotoxicity

We propose a new colorimetric method for evaluation of specific T lymphocyte cytotoxicity based on the capacity of viable cells to incorporate alamar blue dye, an indicator of cell metabolic activity. This method is effective for highly specific strains of cytotoxic T lymphocytes and for primary T killers formed in vivo and constituting a small part of analyzed cell population. This test is a simple nonradioactive method for evaluating specific cellular cytotoxicity exhibiting sufficient sensitivity for evaluation of this parameter in the presence of effector cells.