KILR Cytotoxicity Product Solutions

Specifically Measure Direct Target Cell Death

Cytotoxicity assays are required to measure target cell death via several mechanisms of action (MOA). These MOAs include antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC), antibody-dependent cell phagocytosis (ADCP), cytotoxic T-cell lymphocyte mediated death (CTL), bi-specific antibody-mediated T-cell redirection, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T), and adoptive T-cell therapies. Such assays are designed to capture a therapeutics’ ability to cause targeted cell death via one or more primary MOAs, and to predict or mimic a physiological response. Cancer immunotherapy (immune-oncology) therapeutics are designed to treat cancers by boosting the body’s immune system to fight and kill the cancer cells. Assays for these drugs need to detect target cancer cell death when co-cultured with immune effector cells or in the presence of the complement system.

Commonly used assays for measuring cytotoxicity include reporter gene and fluorescent dye-based assays. However, these assays suffer from disadvantages, including variability induced by effector cells. Reporter gene assays only predict the MOA potential and typically require a bridging assay (as needed for ADCC) to quantify target cell death. Fluorescent and radioactive dye-based assays pose safety challenges and run the risk of the spontaneous release of dyes from the cells, causing leaks, thus impacting the accuracy and reproducibility of the data. Effector cells such as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) used in these assays tend to have inherent donor variability, reducing their consistency and reproducibility in lot release assays.

Eurofins DiscoverX^® KILR^® (Killing Immune-Lysis Reaction) cytotoxicity assay platform provides a simple, non-radioactive, and dye-free method to specifically measure target cell death that avoids the drawbacks of the other commonly used cytotoxicity assays. This homogeneous, plate-based assay platform has broad applications from screening to QC lot-release testing, particularly for immuno-oncology drug development applications such as ADCC, ADCP, CDC, CAR-T, and T-cell redirection. The flexibility of the KILR platform allows you to utilize stable cell lines or cell pools as part of the cell line assay kits in relevant tumor models. To provide additional flexibility and ease-of-use, accelerate your drug development programs by several months with ready-to-use bioassay format, or eliminate donor-to-donor variability observed with PBMCs with the KILR CD16 Effector Cells.