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Development of a plasmepsin II fluorescence polarization assay suitable for high throughput antimalarial drug discovery.

Despite decades of research, malaria remains the world's most deadly parasitic disease. New treatments with novel mechanisms of action are urgently needed. Plasmepsin II is an aspartyl protease that has been validated as an antimalarial therapeutic target enzyme. Although natural products form the basis of most modern antimalarial drugs, no systematic high-throughput screening has been reported against this target. We have designed an effective strategy for carrying out high-throughput screening of an extensive library of natural products that uses a fluorescence resonance energy transfer primary screening assay in tandem with a fluorescence polarization assay. This strategy allows rapid screening of the library coupled with effective discrimination and elimination of false-positive samples and selection of true hits for chemical isolation of inhibitors of plasmepsin II.

Animals↗

A fluorescence polarization-based assay for peptidyl prolyl cis/trans isomerase cyclophilin A.

Peptidyl prolyl cis/trans isomerase cyclophilin A (CypA) serves as a cellular receptor for the important immunosuppressant drug, cyclosporin A. In addition, CypA and its enzyme family have been found to play critical roles in a variety of biological processes, including protein trafficking, HIV and HCV infection/replication, and Ca(2+)-mediated intracellular signaling. For these reasons, cyclophilins have emerged as potential drug targets for several diseases. Therefore, it is extremely important to screen for novel small molecule cyclophilin inhibitors. Unfortunately, the biochemical assays reported so far are not adaptable to a high-throughput screening format. Here, we report a fluorescence polarization-based assay for human CypA that can be adapted to high-throughput screening for drug discovery. The technique is based on competition and uses a fluorescein-labeled cyclosporin A analog and purified human CypA to quantitatively measure the binding capacity of unlabeled inhibitors. Detection by fluorescence polarization allows real-time measurement of binding ratios without separation steps. The results obtained demonstrated significant correlation among assay procedures, suggesting that the application of fluorescence polarization in combination with CypA is highly advantageous for the accurate assessment of inhibitor binding.

Binding Sites↗

High-throughput drug screening of the DPC4 tumor-suppressor pathway in human pancreatic cancer cells.

OBJECTIVE: To screen a library of small chemicals for compounds that activate the DPC4 signal transduction pathway in a human pancreatic cancer cell line. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: Various tumor-suppressor genes are mutated in all human cancers. Specifically, DPC4 (deleted in pancreatic carcinoma, locus 4 or MADH4/SMAD4) is a tumor-suppressor gene mutated in approximately 50% of human pancreatic adenocarcinomas. DPC4 plays an important role in the well-studied transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta) signaling pathway. It would be useful to identify therapies that augment or restore the downstream functions of this critical signal transduction pathway, in hopes that such therapy would have a rational role in anticancer therapy. METHODS: Using a commercially available plasmid vector with a luciferase reporter gene already incorporated, a DPC4-specific reporter construct was genetically engineered. This was done by inserting six copies of the palindromic Smad binding element (6SBE), which is a DNA binding element specific for DPC4, in front of the minimal promoter in the plasmid. This construct was then stably integrated into the genome of a human pancreatic cancer cell line (PANC-1) that has wild-type DPC4. Several stably transfected clones were tested for basal luciferase expression and inducibility with TGFbeta, which is known to activate the DPC4 signal transduction pathway. A single transfected clone was chosen for the drug screen based on basal luciferase (reporter) expression and TGFbeta inducibility. A systematic screen of the chemical library was then performed, using luciferase activity to detect DPC4 activity and induction of the signaling pathway. RESULTS: A high-throughput system based on this stably integrated reporter system was used to screen a library of 16,320 random compounds to identify agents that conferred robust augmentation of the DPC4 signal transduction pathway. Of the 16,320 compounds screened, 11 were associated with a 2- to 5-fold induction of luciferase activity, and one with a 12-fold activation. The latter compound was shown to be a novel histone deacetylase inhibitor and was further characterized. CONCLUSIONS: These results confirm the feasibility of a specific high-throughput reporter system to screen a large compound library in human cells efficiently. The screening identified several compounds capable of augmenting DPC4-specific luciferase reporter activity, and a specific mechanism for one compound was identified. The discovery of such agents will aid our understanding of complex tumor-suppressive signaling pathways and may identify other potential therapeutic targets within this critical signaling pathway. In addition, random drug screening provides an unbiased method for identifying drugs or lead compounds for potential therapeutic use.

Adenocarcinoma↗

HyperCas12a enables multiplexed CRISPRi screens.

Interactions between multiple genes or cis-regulatory elements (CREs) underlie a wide range of biological processes in both health and disease. High-throughput screens using dCas9 fused to epigenome editing domains have allowed researchers to assess the impact of activation or repression of both coding and non-coding genomic regions on a phenotype of interest, but assessment of genetic interactions between those elements has been limited to pairs. Here, we combine a hyper-efficient version of Lachnospiraceae bacterium dCas12a (dHyperLbCas12a) with RNA Polymerase II expression of long CRISPR RNA (crRNA) arrays to enable efficient highly-multiplexed epigenome editing. We demonstrate that this system is compatible with several activation and repression domains, including the P300 histone acetyltransferase domain and SIN3A interacting domain (SID). We further show that the system can be used in cultured primary immune cells and to drive differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells. We also developed new approaches to use the dCas12a platform for simultaneous activation and repression from a single crRNA array via co-expression of multiple dCas12a orthologues. Lastly, we demonstrate that the dHyperLbCas12a effectors are highly effective for multiple modalities of high-throughput screens, namely proliferation screens and screens to dissect the independent and combinatorial contributions of CREs on gene expression. The tools and methods introduced here create new possibilities for highly multiplexed control of gene expression in a wide variety of biological systems.

Journal Article↗

A fluorogenic histone deacetylase assay well suited for high-throughput activity screening.

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are important enzymes for the transcriptional regulation of gene expression in eukaryotic cells. Recent findings suggest that HDACs could be key targets for chemotherapeutic intervention in malignant diseases. A convenient and sensitive fluorogenic assay for HDAC activity would therefore expedite studies of HDAC in transcriptional regulation and in vitro screening for drug discovery. In this study, novel fluorogenic substrates of HDACs were synthesized with an epsilon-acetylated lysyl moiety and an adjacent MCA moiety at the C terminus of the peptide chain. Upon deacetylation of the acetylated lysyl moiety, molecules became substrates for trypsin, which released highly fluorescent AMC molecules in a subsequent step of the assay. The fluorescence increased in direct proportion to the amount of deacetylated substrate molecules, i.e., HDAC activity. The nonisotopic, homogeneous assay is well suited for high-throughput HDAC inhibitor screening.

Acetylation↗

High-throughput nuclear magnetic resonance-based screening.

A high-throughput screening strategy is described that involves the acquisition of two-dimensional 15N/1H correlation spectra in less than 10 min on 50 microM protein samples using cryogenic NMR probe technology. By screening at these concentrations, small organic molecules can be tested in mixtures of 100, which dramatically increases the throughput of the NMR-based assay. Using this strategy, libraries of more than 200 000 compounds can be tested in less than 1 month. There are many advantages of high-throughput NMR-based screening compared to conventional assays, such as the ability to identify high-affinity ligands for protein targets with no known function. This suggests that the method will be extremely useful for screening the large number of targets derived from genomics research.

Cold Temperature↗

A high-density screening format for encoded combinatorial libraries: assay miniaturization and its application to enzymatic reactions.

A novel, miniaturized high-throughput screening format is described for assay of combinatorial libraries generated on beads. This approach, which is ideally suited to encoded libraries synthesized on beads, utilizes the photolytic cleavage of individual compounds into a high-density well array (>6500 wells within a standard 96-well microtiter plate footprint) with well volumes as low as 0.37 microl. As a model study, an encoded dipeptide library (324 members) acylated with isobutyl succinate was assayed using this format to search for potential inhibitors of matrilysin, a member of the matrix metalloproteinase superfamily. In situ release of compounds from solid support was accomplished by photochemical cleavage after beads and enzyme were distributed to the wells. After the addition of a fluorogenic substrate to the array, the extent of enzyme inhibition and identification of active compounds was quantitated by imaging of the fluorescence emission upon uv irradiation. The structure-activity relationship data generated from the identified inhibitors in this study corroborate previous findings, thus validating the utility of this approach as a means of high-throughput screening of bead-based libraries.

Acylation↗

Computational methods in developing quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR): a review.

Virtual filtering and screening of combinatorial libraries have recently gained attention as methods complementing the high-throughput screening and combinatorial chemistry. These chemoinformatic techniques rely heavily on quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analysis, a field with established methodology and successful history. In this review, we discuss the computational methods for building QSAR models. We start with outlining their usefulness in high-throughput screening and identifying the general scheme of a QSAR model. Following, we focus on the methodologies in constructing three main components of QSAR model, namely the methods for describing the molecular structure of compounds, for selection of informative descriptors and for activity prediction. We present both the well-established methods as well as techniques recently introduced into the QSAR domain.

Models, Molecular↗

The chemical-biological interface: developments in automated and miniaturised screening technology.

The rapidly changing developments in genomics and combinatorial chemistry, generating new drug targets and large numbers of compounds, have caused a revolution in high-throughput screening technologies. Key to this revolution has been the introduction of robotics and automation, together with new biological assay technologies (e.g., homogeneous time resolved fluorescence). With ever increasing workloads, together with economic and logistical constraints, miniaturisation is rapidly becoming essential for the future of high-throughput screening and combinatorial chemistry. This is evident from the introduction of high-density microtitre plates, small volume liquid handling robots and associated detection technology.

Automation↗

Analysis of large screening data sets via adaptively grown phylogenetic-like trees.

As the use of high-throughput screening systems becomes more routine in the drug discovery process, there is an increasing need for fast and reliable analysis of the massive amounts of the resulting data. At the forefront of the methods used is data reduction, often assisted by cluster analysis. Activity thresholds reduce the data set under investigation to manageable sizes while clustering enables the detection of natural groups in that reduced subset, thereby revealing families of compounds that exhibit increased activity toward a specific biological target. The above process, designed to handle primarily data sets of sizes much smaller than the ones currently produced by high-throughput screening systems, has become one of the main bottlenecks of the modern drug discovery process. In addition to being fragmented and heavily dependent on human experts, it also ignores all screening information related to compounds with activity less than the threshold chosen and thus, in the best case, can only hope to discover a subset of the knowledge available in the screening data sets. To address the deficiencies of the current screening data analysis process the authors have developed a new method that analyzes thoroughly large screening data sets. In this report we describe in detail this new approach and present its main differences with the methods currently in use. Further, we analyze a well-known, publicly available data set using the proposed method. Our experimental results show that the proposed method can improve significantly both the ease of extraction and amount of knowledge discovered from screening data sets.

Algorithms↗

Microarrays of lentiviruses for gene function screens in immortalized and primary cells.

Here we describe lentivirus-infected cell microarrays for the high-throughput screening of gene function in mammalian cells. To create these arrays, we cultured mammalian cells on glass slides 'printed' with lentiviruses pseudotyped as vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein, which encode short hairpin RNA or cDNA. Cells that land on the printed 'features' become infected with lentivirus, creating a living array of stably transduced cell clusters within a monolayer of uninfected cells. The small size of the features of the microarrays (300 microm in diameter) allows high-density spotting of lentivirus, permitting thousands of distinct parallel infections on a single glass slide. Because lentiviruses have a wide cellular tropism, including primary cells, lentivirus-infected cell microarrays can be used as a platform for high-throughput screening in a variety of cell types.

Animals↗

Cloning, over-expression and purification of Pseudomonas aeruginosa murC encoding uridine diphosphate N-acetylmuramate: L-alanine ligase.

We cloned and sequenced the murC gene from Pseudomonas aeruginosa encoding a protein of 53 kDa. Multiple alignments with 20 MurC peptide sequences from different bacteria confirmed the presence of highly conserved regions having sequence identities ranging from 22-97% including conserved motifs for ATP-binding and the active site of the enzyme. Genetic complementation was done in Escherichia coli (murCts) suppressing the lethal phenotype. The murC gene was subcloned into the expression vector pET30a and overexpressed in E. coli BL21(lambdaDE3). Three PCR cloning strategies were used to obtain the three recombinant plasmids for expression of the native MurC, MurC His-tagged at N-terminal and at C-terminal, respectively. MurC His-tagged at C-terminal was chosen for large scale production and protein purification in the soluble form. The purification was done in a single chromatographic step on an affinity nickel column and obtained in mg quantities at 95% homogeneity. MurC protein was used to produce monoclonal antibodies for epitope mapping and for assay development in high throughput screenings. Detailed studies of MurC and other genes of the bacterial cell cycle will provide the reagents and strain constructs for high throughput screening and for design of novel antibacterials.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Simultaneous determination of nitrate and nitrite in biological fluids by capillary electrophoresis and preliminary study on their determination by microchip capillary electrophoresis.

In order to develop a highly sensitive and high-throughput screening method for nitrogen monoxide metabolites in biological fluids, we have investigated the simultaneous determination of nitrite and nitrate, using capillary electrophoresis and microchip capillary electrophoresis. In capillary zone electrophoresis, a running buffer based on human serum components with high ionic strength has been developed for the determination of nitrite and nitrate in human serum and human saliva. We obtained successful separation of nitrite and nitrate in the serum and the saliva within 7 min under optimum analytical conditions. Linear calibration curves for nitrite and nitrate for both peak height and area were obtained by a standard addition method. The limits of detection obtained at a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of 3 for nitrite and nitrate in the serum were 2.6 and 1.5 microM, respectively. The values of the relative standard deviation of peak height for the serum with 9.2 microM nitrite and 20.9 microM nitrate were 5.7 and 4.1%, respectively. For on-site analysis with high-throughput screening, a microchip capillary electrophoresis method using a microchip made of quartz with a UV detector was developed. In this high-throughput format, using a running buffer with an electroosmotic flow modifier, the peaks of nitrite and nitrate in an artificial serum sample were obtained within 8 s. In high-resolution mode, using the buffer without electroosmotic flow modifier, the separation of nitrite and nitrate was obtained within 15 s. In high-resolution mode, using an artificial serum sample with 50 microM NO2- and 50 microM NO3-, the limits of detection (S/N = 3) of 41 microM for NO2- and 26 microM for NO3- were obtained. The method was applied to human serum and saliva. We obtained peaks due to nitrite and nitrate in 10-fold diluted saliva.

Electrochemistry↗

High-throughput RNAi screening in vitro: from cell lines to primary cells.

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are being used to induce sequence-specific gene silencing in cultured cells to study mammalian gene function. Libraries of siRNAs targeting entire human gene classes can be used to identify genes with specific cellular functions. Here we describe high-throughput siRNA delivery methods to facilitate siRNA library screening experiments with both immortalized and primary cells. We adapted chemical reverse transfection for immortalized adherent cell lines in a 96-well format. The method is fast, robust, and exceptionally effective for many cell types. For primary cells and immortalized cells that are recalcitrant to lipofection-based methods, we developed electropermeabilization (electroporation) conditions that facilitate siRNA delivery to a broad range of cell types, including primary human T-cells, hMSC, NHA, NDHF-Neo, HUVEC, DI TNC1, RPTEC, PC12, and K562 cells. To enable high-throughput electropermeabilization of primary cells, we developed a novel 96-well electroporation device that provides highly efficient and reproducible delivery of siRNAs. The combination of high-throughput chemical reverse transfection and electroporation makes it possible to deliver libraries of siRNAs to virtually any cell type, enabling gene function analysis and discovery on a genome scale.

Animals↗

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS)--a highly sensitive method to analyze drug/target interactions.

Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) a new analytical technology, allows binding properties to be determined very accurately in biological assays at the level of single molecules. At concentrations of > or = 10(-12) M, binding constants, on/off-rates, and even reaction/enzyme kinetics can be determined in real-time, and in sample volumes as low as 10(-9) microliters. The FCS technology can be applied to study molecular and cellular interactions in homogeneous assays. Assay times in the range of seconds in combination with nanoliter sample volumes allow FCS to be used for high throughput screening to identify new pharmaceutical lead structures or new pharmacological targets. FCS is fully compatible with standard microtiter plate formats. However, for high throughput screening, specially designed sample carriers containing many thousand sub-microliter sample wells may be used in combination with a nanopipetting and sample retrieval system.

Animals↗

[Comparison the screening methods of the acute toxicity in vitro].

OBJECTIVE: To provide the proof for establishing the high throughput screening method of the acute toxicity by comparing the 4 screening methods of the acute toxicity in vitro. METHODS: HepG2 cells, plated in 96-well plates, were treated with 47 compounds and we detected the cytotoxicity using 4 methods and calculated the IC50, IC45, IC40, IC35, IC30, and these values were compared with the LD50. RESULTS: The IC45 from the neutral red method has the best relativity with the LD50. CONCLUSION: Plating HepG2 cells in 96-well plates, the cytotoxicity be detected using the neutral red method and the IC45 was calculated. It is considered to provide the proof for establishing the high throughput screening method of the acute toxicity in vitro.

Cell Survival↗

Development of a cell-based reporter assay for screening of inhibitors of hypoxia-inducible factor 2-induced gene expression.

Reporter cell lines have been developed for the identification of inhibitors of gene expression enhanced by hypoxia-inducible factor 2, which has been implicated as a transcription factor involved in the tumorigenesis of clear cell renal carcinoma. Stably transformed reporter clones of the human renal clear cell carcinoma cell line 786-O were generated by transfection or retroviral infection. Luciferase reporter expression in the vectors used was driven by either the natural human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) promoter-enhancer or by the VEGF and the human endothelial nitric oxide synthase enhancers modulating minimal human cytomegalovirus promoter. Utility of the generated reporter cell lines was validated by introducing the von Hippel-Lindau protein complex and testing for reporter inducibility by hypoxia. The dynamic range in reporter activity under hypoxic stress was found to be at least 30- to 40-fold, with a signal-to-noise ratio of 60:1. Properties of the cell lines such as tolerance to up to 3% DMSO, signal stability with multiple in vitro passages, and utility in both 96- and 384-well plate formats indicated their suitability for use in a high-throughput screen. In addition, the potential use of these reporter lines in the evaluation of high-throughput screening hits in vivo in various mice models has been demonstrated.

Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins↗

Tapping allergen repertoires by advanced cloning technologies.

BACKGROUND: Complex allergenic sources such as moulds, foods and mites contain complex panels of IgE-binding molecules which need to be cloned, produced and characterized in order to mimic the entire allergenicity of whole extracts reconstituted by mixing single standardized recombinant allergens. METHODS: Phage surface display of cDNA libraries selectively enriched for allergen-expressing clones using IgE from allergic patients allows rapid isolation of large panels of allergens. For the characterization of all different clones present in enriched cDNA libraries in a fast and cost-effective way, high-throughput screening technology is required. RESULTS: The combination of selective enrichment of cDNA libraries based on biopanning against serum IgE from sensitized patients and automated robot technology for picking and high-density gridding of clones onto filter membranes, followed by hybridization, enables fast identification of all the different clones present in an enriched library. The consequent application of selective enrichment and robotic-based screening allows, within weeks, cloning and characterization of the whole allergenic repertoire of any organisms. CONCLUSIONS: Robotic-based high-throughput screening of clones selected for IgE-binding capacity from phage surface-displayed cDNA libraries of Aspergillus fumigatus, Cladosporium herbarum, Coprinus comatus, Malassezia furfur, peanut and human lung tissue allowed rapid characterization of 81, 28, 37, 27, 8 and 151 different sequences, respectively. All these cDNAs bear a high probability to encode allergens derived from the respective allergenic source.

Allergens↗