A method for determining intracellular content of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the cultured cells was investigated with a firefly luciferase reagent, and a micro assay method was established. The method minimized the size of both samples and luciferase reagent employed.
The per cell amount of intracellular ATP of HeLa 229 and McCoy cells was estimated to be 7.20×10-11 M arid 8.74×10-11 M, respectively. The method could be applied to a direct measurement of the ATP content in cultured cells grown in each well of a 96-well micro tissue culture plate.