Comparative study of four fluorescent probes for evaluation of natural killer cell cytotoxicity assays

Cytotoxicity is one of the major defence mechanisms against both virus-infected and tumor cells. Radioactive 51chromium (51Cr) release assay is a “gold standard” for assessment of natural killer (NK) cytolytic activity in vitro. Several disadvantages of this assay led us to design alternative tools based on flow cytometry analysis. Four different fluorescent dyes, calcein acetoxymethyl ester (CAM), carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE), Vybrant DiO (DiO) and MitoTracker Green (MTG) were tested for labeling of NK target K-562 cells. Target staining stability, spontaneous release of fluorochromes and subsequent accumulation in bystander unstained cells were measured using fluorimetry and flow cytometry. Healthy donor peripheral blood mononuclear cells and affinity column purified NK cells were used as effectors coincubated with target K-562 cells at different E:T ratios for 3 h and 90 min, respectively. Fluorescent probe 7-amino-actinomycin D was used for live and dead cell discrimination. Bland–Altman statistical method was applied to measure true agreement for all CAM–51Cr, CFSE–51Cr, DiO–51Cr and MTG–51Cr pairs analyzed.Based on the data, none of the four proposed methods can be stated equivalent to the standard 51Cr release assay. Considering linear relationships between data obtained with four fluorochromes and 51Cr release assay as well as linear regression analysis with R2=0.9393 value for CAM–51Cr pair, we found the CAM assay to be the most closely related to the 51Cr assay.