A solution to the problems of cytolysis assays with additional applications to other immunological and biochemical assays.

After cellular immunoassays are compared with classical bioassays, conventional methods and consequent problems of data analysis for cytolysis assays are reviewed and a new solution is proposed. This solution incorporates new methods, called dose-response surface assays and analysis (DRSA), which estimate cytolytic activity coefficients on a surface in a three-dimensional space with two dose variables (killers and targets) and one response variable (counts). These new methods based on dose-response surfaces are demonstrated to be more informative and reliable than classical methods based on dose-response curves. In a test of the methods' robustness (sensitivity of parameter estimates to changes in the dose levels of the assay design), cytolytic activity coefficients estimated by DRSA varied by less than or equal to 30% over a reduction of three to four orders of magnitude in the dose levels. This remarkable robustness should be compared with the corresponding figures of as much as 500% over less than 1 order of magnitude for previously published results of coefficients estimated by conventional methods. DRSA is distinguished from replot-of-plots methods such as those used for enzyme inhibition assays in biochemistry, and is recommended as a more efficient method that should replace replot-of-plot methods now antiquated by the advent of microcomputers. DRSA can be applied to any experimental system that requires an activity coefficient to be estimated on a dose-response surface in a space of greater than or equal to 3 dimensions (greater than or equal to 2 dose variables and one response variable), regardless of the mathematical model and statistical estimators used to analyze the dose-response interaction. Finally, DRSA is compared with the methods known as response surface methodology (RSM), and is described as a new class of methods to be added to those that constitute RSM.