Clonogenic Assay (CLA)

The 'colony formation assay or 'clonogenic assay' is a classical test to evaluate cell growth after treatment. The assay is widespread in oncological research areas where it is used to test the proliferating power of cancer cell lines after radiation and/or treatment with anticancer agents. To test cell proliferation, cell lines are treated and plated out in multi-well plates. After the incubation period, cells are fixed, stained and the number of colonies - defined as a group of neighboring cells that are thought to have originated from one mother cell- is counted.

This counting and grouping can be done manually at large magnification. Yet, this process is not only time consuming but introduces a large degree of subjectivity and inter-observer variability. DCI Labs has therefore developed an automated assay that works just as a manual counting procedure. Large digital mosaic images are created from the wells and analyzed to detect the individual cells. These cells are then grouped into colonies based on proximity of their neighbors. A simple settings panel allows the user to set algorithm settings such as the minimum number of cells/clusters or the acceptable distance between cells within a colony in order to be able to test a wide variety of cells and treatment regimens. After analysis, a manual re-evaluation of the detected clones can be done and corrections can be made.

• Number of clusters
• Number of clones
• Number of cells/cluster
• Number of manually deleted clones
• Number of manually accepted clones