Assimilation animal types

One of the most popular bioassay for interferons is termed the cytopathic effect inhibition assay . This assay is based upon the ability of many interferons to render animal cells resistant to viral attack. It entails incubation of the interferon preparation with cells sensitive to destruction by a specific virus. That virus is then subsequently added, and the percentage of cells that survive thereafter is proportional to the levels of interferon present in the assay sample. Viable cells can assimilate certain dyes, such as neutral red. Addition of the dye followed by spectrophotometric quantitation of the amount of dye assimilated can thus be used to quantitate percentage cell survival. This type of assay can be scaled down to run in a single well of a microtitre plate. This facilitates automated assay of large numbers of samples with relative ease. 

As in Chapter 7, we successively consider the transport, storage and metal ion homeostasis in prokaryotes, plants and animals. Since the assimilation of metals in unicellular bacteria does not require their transport to other cell types, we confine our discussion only to storage and homeostasis. 

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