Polydopamine and dopamine interfere with tetrazolium-based cytotoxicity assays and produce exaggerated cytocompatibility inferences.

Tetrazolium-based assays such as the MTT assay have been commonly employed in evaluating biocompatibility. Here, we show that PDA (or its precursor dopamine (DA)) spontaneously reduces MTT and produces exaggerated cytocompatibility inferences. The extent of interference depends on the method of DA polymerization. We observed that the trypan blue exclusion assay allowed more accurate determination of cell viability in the presence of DA- and PDA-based nanomaterials.