A Blind Comparison of Simple Bench-top Bioassays and Human Tumour Cell Cytotoxicities as Antitumor Prescreens

Simple bench-top bioassays involving brine shrimp lethality, Lemna frond proliferation, and the inhibition of crown gall tumours on potato discs, as well as the human tumour cell lines A-549 lung carcinoma, MCF-7 breast carcinoma and HT-29 colon adenocarcinoma, were compared for their accuracy to detect known in vivo (P-388) active antitumour agents supplied by the National Cancer Institute. The potato disc assay was the best and showed excellent correlation to in vivo activity (p = 0.008). The brine shrimp assay (p = 0.033) proved to be superior or equally as accurate as the in vitro human solid tumour cell lines (p = 0.033-0.334). The Lemna assay (p = 0.708) showed the poorest correlation. The brine shrimp and potato disc assays are suggested as convenient in-house prescreens to existing cytotoxicity or antitumour assays.