Does Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent affect cell viability?
Does Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent affect cell viability?
No, as demonstrated when we performed a WST-1 assay to compare the effects on HeLa cell proliferation of Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent and Product P (a popular lipid-based protein transfection technology). The Xfect reagent did not affect cell proliferation compared to untreated cells, while Product P decreased cell proliferation by more than 30%. When we used Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent to transfect DsRed-Express (a red fuorescent protein) into a commonly used mouse embryonic stem cell line and measured cell viability using trypan blue dye exclusion, the cells retained 100% viability.
Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent provides much higher cell viability than Product P when transfecting HeLa cells. HeLa cells were seeded in a 96-well plate (3 x 104 cells per well) one day prior to transfection. The cells were transfected with 0.25 µg of ß-galactosidase using Product P or Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent for 4 hours. A WST-1 proliferation assay was performed to assess cytotoxicity in the transfected samples relative to untreated HeLa cells.