A Critical Analysis of the Available In Vitro and Ex Vivo Methods to Study Retinal Angiogenesis

Table 3

Advantages and disadvantages of different apoptosis assays.

	Annexin V	Caspase	TUNEL assay
Advantages	High sensitivity	Rapid	High sensitivity
		Allows consistent quantification of apoptotic cells	Rapid
			Easy
Disadvantages	Difficult to differentiate apoptotic from necrotic cells	Low specificity	Expensive
		Activation of caspases does not necessarily mean apoptosis	False positives from necrotic cells, cells in DNA repair or gene transcription