Also some types of drugs, e.g alcohol,[1] and some venom, e.g. from the puff adder (Bitis arietans) or brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa) are toxic to cells.
Cells undergoing necrosis typically exhibit rapid swelling, lose membrane integrity, shut down metabolism, and release their contents into the environment.
Apoptosis is characterized by well defined cytological and molecular events including a change in the refractive index of the cell, cytoplasmic shrinkage, nuclear condensation and cleavage of DNA into regularly sized fragments.
[2] Alternatively, membrane integrity can be assessed by monitoring the passage of substances that are normally sequestered inside cells to the outside.
Label-free real-time techniques provide the kinetics of the cytotoxic response rather than just a snapshot like many colorimetric endpoint assays.
Material that has been determined as cytotoxic, typically biomedical waste, is often marked with a symbol that consists of a capital letter "C" inside a triangle.
[7][8] A highly important topic is the prediction of cytotoxicity of chemical compounds based on previous measurements, i.e. in-silico testing.
[11][12] Antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) describes the cell-killing ability of certain lymphocytes, which requires the target cell being marked by an antibody.