Fluorescence-based method is more accurate than counting-based methods for plotting growth curves of adherent cells.

The fluorescence-based method is not dependent on the determination of the total number of cells, but rather is approached by assessing the fluorescence of a sample of single cells from a cell population at different time points after plating. Therefore, this method is not biased due to either cell loss during harvesting or to the presence of cellular debris and cell clumps. Moreover, the fluorescence-based method displays lower variation among different measurements of the same time point, which increases the reliability on the determination of lag, log and stationary phase transitions.