Title: chromium release assay
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - chromium release assay
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13004
Status: current

Definition
Immunotoxicity assay that can be used to assess either natural killer (NK) cell or cytotoxic T cell activity or macrophage activity. When incubated with \(\ce{^{51}Cr{-}labeled}\) chicken red blood cells (cRBCs), NK and cytotoxic T cells lyse the cRBC and thus induce the release of \(\ce{^{51}Cr}\) into the medium. In contrast, macrophages phagocytose cRBC, and are then lysed to assess the amount of \(\ce{^{51}Cr}\) they have taken up.

Note
The assay is usually applied to measure parameters of innate immunity.

Related Terms
- Immunotoxicity: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13323
- chromate uptake assay: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13003
- cytotoxic T cell: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13072
- macrophage: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13424
- natural killer (NK) cell: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13499

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 1113. 'IUPAC glossary of terms used in immunotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 1143 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-11-06-03)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13004/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13004/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13004/xml

Citation: Citation: 'chromium release assay' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13004
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Accessed: 2026-07-14T02:03:09+00:00