Cell Biology

KWS BioTest has the capability and experience to support its clients with all their cell biology needs. New techniques and equipment are regularly integrated into our offering, following full validation.

A selection of the main cell biology services include:

• Cell proliferation assays - screening agents for their ability to either promote or suppress T cell proliferation, typically using CFSE or metabolic markers as readouts.
• Antigen presentation assays – investigating the ability of a compound to modulate antigen presentation & the resulting immune response. Expertise in human and rodent systems is allied to the ability to monitor antigen specific proliferation using normal T cell transgenic derived cells.
• Cytotoxicity – quantification of the cytotoxic potential of a population of cells directed towards an antigen of interest, using flow cytometry or chromium release assay readouts.
• Cell cycle and apoptosis analysis – assessing the effect of an agent on cell cycle phases or apoptosis induction.
• Cellular activation, metabolic activity – monitoring markers of cell activation & their modulation by test compounds.
• Microbial & viral infectivity measurements – quantifying the effect of test compounds on bacterial or viral growth or infectivity in culture.
• Flow cytometry – quantifying a cell subset of interest, from a cell population, using single or multi-colour fluorescent staining.
• FACS and magnetic cell sorting – exploiting cellular markers to enrich a cell type of interest, from a mixture of cells, for subsequent functional assays, cell cultures and molecular biology studies.
• Confocal microscopy & imaging – visualising individual cells using fluorescent microscopy, including co-localisation of several different intracellular/cell surface markers.