Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “high throughput”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 271 records · Page 15Linked to original sources

Using clustering techniques to improve hit selection in high-throughput screening.

A typical modern high-throughput screening (HTS) operation consists of testing thousands of chemical compounds to select active ones for future detailed examination. The authors describe 3 clustering techniques that can be used to improve the selection of active compounds (i.e., hits). They are designed to identify quality hits in the observed HTS measurements. The considered clustering techniques were first tested on simulated data and then applied to analyze the assay inhibiting Escherichia coli dihydrofo-late reductase produced at the HTS laboratory of McMaster University.

Cluster Analysis↗

Multichannel plating unit for high-throughput plating of cell cultures.

High-throughput genomic approaches to gene function or target identification have led to the development and implementation of the 96-well format for many standard molecular biology manipulations. The apparatus described here, a Multichannel Plating Unit, is designed to plate out individual cultures efficientlyfrom standard 96-well culture blocks. Following transformation, aliquots of culture are loaded onto sterile beads that are rolled along individual channels of agar media. After the beads traverse the channel, they drop into the exit alley for disposal via an exit pore. The apparatus presented has 12 individual lanes, and the spacing is compatible with a standard 12-channel pipettor Thus, the unit allows for the rapid plating of 12 individual cultures at a time. For one 96-well block of transformants, this method reduces the labeling and plating effort from 96 culture dishes that are spread individually to eight multichannel plates. The savings in time, materials, and storage space is significant

Bacteria↗

Phenotypic screening of small molecule libraries by high throughput cell imaging.

We have developed high throughput fluorescence cell imaging methods to screen chemical libraries for compounds with effects on diverse aspects of cell physiology. We describe screens for compounds that arrest cells in mitosis, that block cell migration, and that block the secretory pathway. Each of these screens yielded specific inhibitors for research use, and the mitosis screen identified Eg5 as a potential target protein for cancer chemotherapy. Cell imaging provides a large amount of information from primary screening data that can be used to distinguish compounds with different effects on cells, and together with automated analysis, to quantitate compound effects.

Animals↗

High throughput screening for spores and vegetative forms of pathogenic B. anthracis by an internally controlled real-time PCR assay with automated DNA preparation.

Human infections with Bacillus anthracis have become rare but in cases of intentional release, masses of samples would have to be expected. Current PCR assays for anthrax are appropriate for use in single cases, but they have not been formulated for high throughput screening. This article describes a high throughput real-time PCR for anthrax, including automated sample preparation without the need for pre-culturing of samples. The assay detects single copies of target gene. An internal control monitors the whole assay including sample preparation. The limit of detection in blood was 1,066 (95%CI, 741-1,739) copies/ml, corresponding to 4.4-32.3 organisms/ml. Using spore preparations, 20 colony-forming units (CFU) per sample could be detected reliably (0.8 CFU per PCR). The extraction procedures depleted viable spores from solution by factors of 10,000 (automated procedure) and >100,000 (conventional column procedure). One hundred and ten clinical and environmental specimens were retested, 50 of them sampled during a period of heightened anthrax awareness in 2001. A widely used assay yielded two false positive results (cross-reaction with B. cereus), while the new assay tested all samples negative. The internal control operated stable in all clinical samples. The assay is capable of testing for anthrax in the high throughput mode.

Automation↗

Interpretation of mass spectrometry data for high-throughput proteomics.

Recent developments in proteomics have revealed a bottleneck in bioinformatics: high-quality interpretation of acquired MS data. The ability to generate thousands of MS spectra per day, and the demand for this, makes manual methods inadequate for analysis and underlines the need to transfer the advanced capabilities of an expert human user into sophisticated MS interpretation algorithms. The identification rate in current high-throughput proteomics studies is not only a matter of instrumentation. We present software for high-throughput PMF identification, which enables robust and confident protein identification at higher rates. This has been achieved by automated calibration, peak rejection, and use of a meta search approach which employs various PMF search engines. The automatic calibration consists of a dynamic, spectral information-dependent algorithm, which combines various known calibration methods and iteratively establishes an optimised calibration. The peak rejection algorithm filters signals that are unrelated to the analysed protein by use of automatically generated and dataset-dependent exclusion lists. In the "meta search" several known PMF search engines are triggered and their results are merged by use of a meta score. The significance of the meta score was assessed by simulation of PMF identification with 10,000 artificial spectra resembling a data situation close to the measured dataset. By means of this simulation the meta score is linked to expectation values as a statistical measure. The presented software is part of the proteome database ProteinScape which links the information derived from MS data to other relevant proteomics data. We demonstrate the performance of the presented system with MS data from 1891 PMF spectra. As a result of automatic calibration and peak rejection the identification rate increased from 6% to 44%.

Algorithms↗

High-throughput characterization for organic pollutants in environmental waters using a capillary electrophoresis chip.

To evaluate organic pollution in water, we did preliminarily studies on high-throughput characterization of organic pollution in water using microchip-based capillary electrophoresis (CE) with laseer-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection. The applied voltage was investigated to control the gated valve injection and CE separation for conventional cross type microchips using a self-made personal computer (PC)-based controller as the voltage supply. We obtained high-throughput data for the reproducible separation of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-labeled river-water samples using a zwitter-ion based buffer solution to avoid adsorption of the labeled sample onto the channel of a microchip made from quartz glass. We used real samples from the Hino River that flows into Lake Biwa, from ten sampling points and obtained several reproducible peaks in different separation patterns for each sample within 2 min. We successfully demonstrated high-throughput characterization of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in environmental water using the microchip.

Carbon↗

High-throughput bioassay-guided fractionation: a technique for rapidly assigning observed activity to individual components of combinatorial libraries, screened in HTS bioassays.

In this paper, we describe an automated, high-throughput analytical tool for the unambiguous characterization of the active component(s) of a combinatorially derived reaction mixture. We call this technique high-throughput bioassay-guided fractionation (BGF). The novel aspects of this communication are the systematization of the BGF concept, the application of BGF to combinatorial chemistry, and the high-throughput nature of the identification technique. The identification of the active component in a well mixture is an essential step for subsequent resynthesis or isolation of the active component(s) or for removal of intractable wells from further consideration. We believe the technique described is also applicable to any mixture library, provided the expected component (or components) of each well is (are) known. Example mixture libraries would include collections of synthetic chemicals and collections of purified natural products. The mixture need not come from libraries produced using parallel synthesis. The BGF tool described herein allows full utilization of highly diverse combinatorial libraries, thereby obviating costly up-front purification or extensive prescreening characterization efforts.

Biological Assay↗

High-Throughput GoMiner, an 'industrial-strength' integrative gene ontology tool for interpretation of multiple-microarray experiments, with application to studies of Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID).

BACKGROUND: We previously developed GoMiner, an application that organizes lists of 'interesting' genes (for example, under-and overexpressed genes from a microarray experiment) for biological interpretation in the context of the Gene Ontology. The original version of GoMiner was oriented toward visualization and interpretation of the results from a single microarray (or other high-throughput experimental platform), using a graphical user interface. Although that version can be used to examine the results from a number of microarrays one at a time, that is a rather tedious task, and original GoMiner includes no apparatus for obtaining a global picture of results from an experiment that consists of multiple microarrays. We wanted to provide a computational resource that automates the analysis of multiple microarrays and then integrates the results across all of them in useful exportable output files and visualizations. RESULTS: We now introduce a new tool, High-Throughput GoMiner, that has those capabilities and a number of others: It (i) efficiently performs the computationally-intensive task of automated batch processing of an arbitrary number of microarrays, (ii) produces a human-or computer-readable report that rank-orders the multiple microarray results according to the number of significant GO categories, (iii) integrates the multiple microarray results by providing organized, global clustered image map visualizations of the relationships of significant GO categories, (iv) provides a fast form of 'false discovery rate' multiple comparisons calculation, and (v) provides annotations and visualizations for relating transcription factor binding sites to genes and GO categories. CONCLUSION: High-Throughput GoMiner achieves the desired goal of providing a computational resource that automates the analysis of multiple microarrays and integrates results across all of the microarrays. For illustration, we show an application of this new tool to the interpretation of altered gene expression patterns in Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID). High-Throughput GoMiner will be useful in a wide range of applications, including the study of time-courses, evaluation of multiple drug treatments, comparison of multiple gene knock-outs or knock-downs, and screening of large numbers of chemical derivatives generated from a promising lead compound.

Binding Sites↗

Gene knockdown by large circular antisense for high-throughput functional genomics.

Single-stranded genomic DNA of recombinant M13 phages was tested as an antisense molecule and examined for its usefulness in high-throughput functional genomics. cDNA fragments of various genes (TNF-alpha, c-myc, c-myb, cdk2 and cdk4) were independently cloned into phagemid vectors. Using the life cycle of M13 bacteriophages, large circular (LC)-molecules, antisense to their respective genes, were prepared from the culture supernatant of bacterial transformants. LC-antisense molecules exhibited enhanced stability, target specificity and no need for target-site searches. High-throughput functional genomics was then attempted with an LC-antisense library, which was generated by using a phagemid vector that incorporated a unidirectional subtracted cDNA library derived from liver cancer tissue. We identified 56 genes involved in the growth of these cells. These results indicate that an antisense sequence as a part of single-stranded LC-genomic DNA of recombinant M13 phages exhibits effective antisense activity, and may have potential for high-throughput functional genomics.

Animals↗

Clinical-scale high-throughput human plasma proteome analysis: lung adenocarcinoma.

Clinical proteomics requires the stable and reproducible analysis of a large number of human samples. We report a high-throughput comprehensive protein profiling system comprising a fully automated, on-line, two-dimensional microflow liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (2-D microLC-MS/MS) system for use in clinical proteomics. A linear ion-trap mass spectrometer (ITMS) also known as a 2-D ITMS instrument, which is characterized by high scan speed, was incorporated into the microLC-MS/MS system in order to obtain highly improved sensitivity and resolution in MS/MS acquisition. This system was used to evaluate bovine serum albumin and human 26S proteasome. Application of these high-throughput microLC conditions and the 2-D ITMS resulted in a 10-fold increase in sensitivity in protein identification. Additionally, peptide fragments from the 26S proteasome were identified three-fold more efficiently than by the conventional 3-D ITMS instrument. In this study, the 2-D microLC-MS/MS system that uses linear 2-D ITMS has been applied for the plasma proteome analysis of a few samples from healthy individuals and lung adenocarcinoma patients. Using the 2-D and 1-D microLC-MS/MS analyses, approximately 250 and 100 different proteins were detected, respectively, in each HSA- and IgG-depleted sample, which corresponds to only 0.4 microL of blood plasma. Automatic operation enabled the completion of a single run of the entire 1-D and 2-D microLC-MS/MS analyses within 11 h. Investigation of the data extracted from the protein identification datasets of both healthy and adenocarcinoma groups revealed that several of the group-specific proteins could be candidate protein disease markers expressed in the human blood plasma. Consequently, it was demonstrated that this high-throughput microLC-MS/MS protein profiling system would be practically applicable to the discovery of protein disease markers, which is the primary objective in clinical plasma proteome projects.

Adenocarcinoma↗

High-throughput solution-based medicinal library screening against human serum albumin.

High-throughput screening of combinatorial libraries has evolved from studying large diverse libraries to analyzing small, structurally similar, focused libraries. This paradigm shift has generated a need for rapid screening technologies to screen both diverse and focused libraries in a simple, efficient, and inexpensive manner. We have proactively addressed these needs by developing a high-throughput, solution-based method combining size exclusion (SEC), two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2-D LC), and mass spectrometry (MS) for determining the relative binding of drug candidates in small, focused medicinal libraries against human serum albumin (HSA). Two types of libraries were used to evaluate the performance of the system. The first consisted of five diverse ligands with a wide range of hydrophobicities and whose association constants to HSA cover 3 orders of magnitude. A beta-lactam library composed of structurally similar compounds was used to further confirm the validity of the methodology. The ability to distinguish site-specific interactions of drugs competing for individual domains of the HSA receptor is also demonstrated. Comparison of chromatographic profiles of the library components before and after incubation with the receptor using multiple reaction monitoring allowed a ranking of the ligands according to their relative binding affinities. The observed rankings correlate closely with literature values of the association constants between the respective ligands and HSA. This simple, rugged methodology can screen a wide spectrum of chemical entities from combinatorial mixtures in less than 6 min.

Acecainide↗

A nonradioactive, high throughput assay for chitin synthase activity.

Wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) binds with high affinity and specificity to several sites on chitin polymers. Based on these properties we have modified and adapted a previously patented (U.S. patent 5,888,757) nonradioactive, high throughput screening assay for antimicrobial agents, making it suitable as a quantitative enzymatic assay for the activity of individual chitin synthase isozymes in yeast. The procedure involves binding of synthesized chitin to a WGA-coated surface followed by detection of the polymer with a horseradish peroxidase-WGA conjugate. Horseradish peroxidase activity is then determined as an increment in absorbance at 600 nm. Absorbance values are converted to amounts of chitin using acid-solubilized chitin as a standard. The high sensitivity (lower limit of detection about 50 ng chitin), low dispersion (lower than 10%), and high throughput (96-well microtiter plate format) make this assay an excellent substitute for the conventional radioactive chitin synthase assay in cell-free extracts. We have applied this method to the differential assay of chitin synthase activities (Chs1, Chs2, and Chs3) in cell-free extracts of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Analysis of Chs3 activity in chitosomal and plasma membrane fractions revealed that Chs3 in the plasma membrane fraction is about sixfold more active than in the chitosome.

Cell Membrane↗

High throughput screening for intercellular adhesion molecule-1 inhibitor.

AIM: To develop a high throughput screening assay to identify inhibitors of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). METHODS: ICAM-1 expression in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated endothelial cells was measured by ELISA. The cytotoxicity of the compounds was measured by MTT. RESULTS: Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) increased ICAM-1 expression in HUVEC in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. Two thousand compounds were screened and the hit rate was 1.5%. Among these 30 compounds, 24 were cytotoxic. CONCLUSION: The ELISA method was inexpensive, reproducible and suitable for high throughput primary cell assay. This assay was feasible to identify inhibitors of ICAM-1 and simultaneously discriminate the activity from the cytotoxic effects.

Cell Adhesion Molecules↗

RNase T1 mediated base-specific cleavage and MALDI-TOF MS for high-throughput comparative sequence analysis.

Here we devise a new method for high-throughput comparative sequence analysis. The developed protocol comprises a homogeneous in vitro transcription/RNase cleavage system with the accuracy and data acquisition speed of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). In summary, the target region is PCR amplified using primers tagged with promoter sequences of T7 or SP6 RNA polymerase. Using RNase T1, the in vitro transcripts are base-specifically cleaved at every G-position. This reaction results in a characteristic pattern of fragment masses that is indicative of the original target sequence. To enable high-throughput analysis, samples are processed with automated liquid handling devices and nanoliter amounts are dispensed onto SpectroCHIP arrays for reliable and homogeneous MALDI preparation. This system enables rapid automated comparative sequence analysis for PCR products up to 1 kb in length. We demonstrate the feasibility of the devised method for analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and pathogen identification.

Apolipoproteins B↗

Implementation of a continuous, enzyme-coupled fluorescence assay for high-throughput analysis of glutamate-producing enzymes.

Enzymatic formation of glutamate is critical to numerous biological pathways. However, current methods for assaying the activities of glutamate-forming enzymes are not particularly suitable for high-throughput screening in drug discovery. We present a continuous-read, fluorometric assay for high-throughput analysis of glutaminases. This assay is adapted to a microplate format and employs glutamate oxidase and horseradish peroxidase to couple glutamate formation to production of the fluorescent reporter molecule, resorufin, for enhancement of sensitivity (M. Zhou, Z. Diwu, N. Panchuk-Voloshina, and R. P. Haughland, 1997, Anal. Biochem. 253, 162-168). Described herein is the selection of suitable levels of coupling enzymes for optimal kinetic response and lag time of the reporter system, based on the kinetic characteristics of the individual coupling enzymes. Finally, implementation of the assay in a format for high-throughput kinetic analysis of glutaminases is demonstrated for Escherichia coli carbamoyl phosphate synthase. Derived kinetic constants are comparable to literature values determined using a variety of assay techniques.

Glutamic Acid↗

High-throughput trapping of secretory pathway genes in mouse embryonic stem cells.

High-throughput gene trapping is a random approach for inducing insertional mutations across the mouse genome. This approach uses gene trap vectors that simultaneously inactivate and report the expression of the trapped gene at the insertion site, and provide a DNA tag for the rapid identification of the disrupted gene. Gene trapping has been used by both public and private institutions to produce libraries of embryonic stem (ES) cells harboring mutations in single genes. Presently, approximately 66% of the protein coding genes in the mouse genome have been disrupted by gene trap insertions. Among these, however, genes encoding signal peptides or transmembrane domains (secretory genes) are underrepresented because they are not susceptible to conventional trapping methods. Here, we describe a high-throughput gene trapping strategy that effectively targets secretory genes. We used this strategy to assemble a library of ES cells harboring mutations in 716 unique secretory genes, of which 61% were not trapped by conventional trapping, indicating that the two strategies are complementary. The trapped ES cell lines, which can be ordered from the International Gene Trap Consortium (http://www.genetrap.org), are freely available to the scientific community.

Animals↗

Application of QuantiGene nucleic acid quantification technology for high throughput screening.

To identify inhibitors of interleukin-8 (IL-8) production, a high throughput assay was developed using the QuantiGene nucleic acid quantification kit that employs branched-chain DNA (bDNA) technology to measure the mRNA directly from cells. Unlike polymerase chain reaction and other technologies that employ target amplification, the QuantiGene system uses signal amplification. To perform the assay, various molecular probes capable of hybridizing with IL-8 mRNA were designed and synthesized. A human lung epithelial cell line was treated with interleukin-1alpha (IL-1alpha) to stimulate the IL-8 gene expression and the mRNA was measured using the QuantiGene system. The QuantiGene assay was sensitive, flexible, and reproducible and achieved equivalent or better sensitivity than promoter-reporter assays, and eliminated the time required for constructing a promoter-reporter system. Our data show that bDNA technology has the potential to be used as a high throughput screening assay.

Branched DNA Signal Amplification Assay↗

Quantitative high-throughput analysis of transcription factor binding specificities.

We present a general high-throughput approach to accurately quantify DNA-protein interactions, which can facilitate the identification of functional genetic polymorphisms. The method tested here on two structurally distinct transcription factors (TFs), NF-kappaB and OCT-1, comprises three steps: (i) optimized selection of DNA variants to be tested experimentally, which we show is superior to selecting variants at random; (ii) a quantitative protein-DNA binding assay using microarray and surface plasmon resonance technologies; (iii) prediction of binding affinity for all DNA variants in the consensus space using a statistical model based on principal coordinates analysis. For the protein-DNA binding assay, we identified a polyacrylamide/ester glass activation chemistry which formed exclusive covalent bonds with 5'-amino-modified DNA duplexes and hindered non-specific electrostatic attachment of DNA. Full accessibility of the DNA duplexes attached to polyacrylamide-modified slides was confirmed by the high degree of data correlation with the electromobility shift assay (correlation coefficient 93%). This approach offers the potential for high-throughput determination of TF binding profiles and predicting the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms on TF binding affinity. New DNA binding data for OCT-1 are presented.

Acrylic Resins↗