A method of test substance removal in agar colony assays using glass capillaries

A technique has been developed to remove test substances, after defined incubation periods, from clonogenic in vitro assays using agar-containing glass capillaries. Following removal from the capillaries, the entire agar gels were washed in petri dishes and redrawn into new capillaries. Using 8 radioactive biochemicals of molecular masses ranging from 150 to 1300 dalton the kinetics of diffusion between 1 and 20 min were determined. Using a wash solution-to-assay volume ratio of 20:1, a single washing for 10 min yielded between 90% and 99% removal by diffusion of test substances. By incorporating myelopoietic stem cells it was demonstrated that the cells to be assayed can be quantitatively transferred, without loss or stress, out of and back into capillaries. Thus the reversibility of test substance action can examined under defined conditions avoiding technical problems of previous methods.