• BMB Reports
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• 제44권11호
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• pp.705-712
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• 2011

Advances in the fields of proteomics and genomics have necessitated the development of high-throughput screening methods (HTS) for the systematic transformation of large amounts of biological/chemical data into an organized database of knowledge. Microfluidic systems are ideally suited for high-throughput biochemical experimentation since they offer high analytical throughput, consume minute quantities of expensive biological reagents, exhibit superior sensitivity and functionality compared to traditional micro-array techniques and can be integrated within complex experimental work flows. A range of basic biochemical and molecular biological operations have been transferred to chip-based microfluidic formats over the last decade, including gene sequencing, emulsion PCR, immunoassays, electrophoresis, cell-based assays, expression cloning and macromolecule blotting. In this review, we highlight some of the recent advances in the application of microfluidics to biochemistry and molecular biology.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제26권2호
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• pp.213-225
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• 2016

To reduce attrition in drug development, it is crucial to consider the development and implementation of translational phenotypic assays as well as decipher diverse molecular mechanisms of action for new molecular entities. High-throughput fluorescence and confocal microscopes with advanced analysis software have simplified the simultaneous identification and quantification of various cellular processes through what is now referred to as high-content screening (HCS). HCS permits automated identification of modifiers of accessible and biologically relevant targets and can thus be used to detect gene interactions or identify toxic pathways of drug candidates to improve drug discovery and development processes. In this review, we summarize several HCS-compatible, biochemical, and molecular biology-driven assays, including immunohistochemistry, RNAi, reporter gene assay, CRISPR-Cas9 system, and protein-protein interactions to assess a variety of cellular processes, including proliferation, morphological changes, protein expression, localization, post-translational modifications, and protein-protein interactions. These cell-based assay methods can be applied to not only 2D cell culture but also 3D cell culture systems in a high-throughput manner.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• 제27권6호
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• pp.701-714
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• 2020

Quantitative high throughput screening (qHTS) assays are used to assess toxicity for many chemicals in a short period by collectively analyzing them at several concentrations. Data are routinely analyzed using nonlinear regression models; however, we propose a new method to analyze qHTS data using a nonlinear mixed effects model. qHTS data are generated by repeating the same experiment several times for each chemical; therefor, they can be viewed as if they are repeated measures data and hence analyzed using a nonlinear mixed effects model which accounts for both intra- and inter-individual variabilities. Furthermore, we apply a one-step approach incorporating robust estimation methods to estimate fixed effect parameters and the variance-covariance structure since outliers or influential observations are not uncommon in qHTS data. The toxicity of chemicals from a qHTS assay is classified based on the significance of a parameter related to the efficacy of the chemicals using the proposed method. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method in terms of power and false discovery rate using simulation studies comparing with one existing method. The proposed method is illustrated using a dataset obtained from the National Toxicology Program.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.178-184
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• 2002

High-throughput screening has become a popular method used to identify new “leads”for potentially therapeutic compounds. Further screening of these lead compounds is typically done with secondary assays which may utilize living, functioning cells as screening tools. A problem (or benefit) with these cell-based assays is that living cells are very sensitive to their environment. We have been interested in the process of stem cell migration and how it relates to the cellular therapy of bone marrow transplantation. In this study we describe a secondary, cell-based assay for screening the effects of various in-vitro conditions on Immature Hematopoietic Cell (IHC) migration. Our results have revealed many subtle factors, such as the cell's adhesive characteristics, or the effect of a culture's growth phase, that need to be accounted for in a screening protocol. Finally, we show that exponentially glowing KG1a cells (a human IHC cell line) were 10 times more motile than those in the lag or stationary phases. These data strongly suggest that KG1a cells secrete a chemokinetic factor during the exponential growth phase of a culture.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.191-199
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• 2000

Genomics is providing targets faster than we can validate them and combinatorial chemistry is providing new chemical entities faster than we can screen them. Historically, the drug discovery cascade has been established as a sequential process initiated with a potency screening against a selected biological target. In this sequential process, pharmacokinetics was often regarded as a low-throughput activity. Typically, limited pharmacokinetics studies would be conducted prior to acceptance of a compound for safety evaluation and, as a result, compounds often failed to reach a clinical testing due to unfavorable pharmacokinetic characteristics. A new paradigm in drug discovery has emerged in which the entire sample collection is rapidly screened using robotized high-throughput assays at the outset of the program. Higher-throughput pharmacokinetics (HTPK) is being achieved through introduction of new techniques, including automation for sample preparation and new experimental approaches. A number of in vitro and in vivo methods are being developed for the HTPK. In vitro studies, in which many cell lines are used to screen absorption and metabolism, are generally faster than in vivo screening, and, in this sense, in vitro screening is often considered as a real HTPK. Despite the elegance of the in vitro models, however, in vivo screenings are always essential for the final confirmation. Among these in vivo methods, cassette dosing technique, is believed the methods that is applicable in the screening of pharmacokinetics of many compounds at a time. The widespread use of liquid chromatography (LC) interfaced to mass spectrometry (MS) or tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) allowed the feasibility of the cassette dosing technique. Another approach to increase the throughput of in vivo screening of pharmacokinetics is to reduce the number of sample analysis. Two common approaches are used for this purpose. First, samples from identical study designs but that contain different drug candidate can be pooled to produce single set of samples, thus, reducing sample to be analyzed. Second, for a single test compound, serial plasma samples can be pooled to produce a single composite sample for analysis. In this review, we validated the issue whether the second method can be applied to practical screening of in vivo pharmacokinetics using data from seven of our previous bioequivalence studies. For a given drug, equally spaced serial plasma samples were pooled to achieve a 'Pooled Concentration' for the drug. An area under the plasma drug concentration-time curve (AUC) was then calculated theoretically using the pooled concentration and the predicted AUC value was statistically compared with the traditionally calculated AUC value. The comparison revealed that the sample pooling method generated reasonably accurate AUC values when compared with those obtained by the traditional approach. It is especially noteworthy that the accuracy was obtained by the analysis of only one sample instead of analyses of a number of samples that necessitates a significant man-power and time. Thus, we propose the sample pooling method as an alternative to in vivo pharmacokinetic approach in the selection potential lead(s) from combinatorial libraries.

• Journal of Life Science
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.94-98
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• 2001

Type I signal peptidase cleaves the signal sequence from the amino terminus of membrane and secreted proteins afters these protein insert across the membrane. This enzyme serves as a potential target for the development of novel antibacterial agents due to its unique physiological and biochemical properties. Despite considerable research, the signal peptidase assay still remains improvement to provide further understanding of the mechanism and high-throughput inhibitor screening of this enzyme. In this paper, three known signal peptidase assays are tested with an E. coli D276A mutant signal peptidase to distinguish the sensitivity of each assays. In vitro assay using the procoat synthesized by in vitro transcription translation shows that the D276A signal peptidase I was inactive while in vivo processing of pro-OmpA expressed in the temperature-sensitive E. coli strain IT41 as well as in vitro assay using pro-OmpA nuclease A substrate show that D276A signal peptidase I has activity like wild-type signal peptidase. These results suggest that in vitro assay using the pro-OmpA nuclease A and in vivo pro-OmpA processing assay are more sensitive monitors than in vitro assay using the pro-coat. In conculsion, caution should be used when interpreting the in vitro results using the procoat.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제11권1호
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• pp.55-57
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• 2013

Growing numbers of studies employ cell line-based systematic short interfering RNA (siRNA) screens to study gene functions and to identify drug targets. As multiple sources of variations that are unique to siRNA screens exist, there is a growing demand for a computational tool that generates normalized values and standardized scores. However, only a few tools have been available so far with limited usability. Here, we present siMacro, a fast and easy-to-use Microsoft Office Excel-based tool with a graphic user interface, designed to process single-condition or two-condition synthetic screen datasets. siMacro normalizes position and batch effects, censors outlier samples, and calculates Z-scores and robust Z-scores, with a spreadsheet output of >120,000 samples in under 1 minute.

• BMB Reports
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• 제36권4호
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• pp.421-425
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• 2003

The serine/threonine protein kinase family is a large and diverse group of enzymes that are involved in the regulation of multiple cellular pathways. Elevated kinase activity has been implicated in many diseases and frequently targeted for the development of pharmacological inhibitors. Therefore, non-radioactive antibody-based kinase assays that allow high throughput screening of compound libraries have been developed. However, they require a generation of antibodies against the phosphorylated form of a specific substrate. We report here a time-resolved fluorescence assay platform that utilizes a commercially-available generic anti-phosphothreonine antibody and permits assaying kinases that are able to phosporylate threonin residues on protein substrates. Using this approach, we developed an assay for Cdc7/Dbf4 kinase activity, determined the $K_m$ for ATP, and identified rottlerin as a non-ATP competitive inhibitor of this enzyme.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제32권1호
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• pp.9-14
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• 2016

The National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) provides validation support for US Federal agencies and the US Tox21 interagency consortium, an interagency collaboration that is using high throughput screening (HTS) and other advanced approaches to better understand and predict chemical hazards to humans and the environment. The use of HTS data from assays relevant to the estrogen receptor signaling data pathway is used as an example of how HTS data can be combined with computational modeling to meet the needs of US agencies. As brief summary of US efforts in the areas of biologics testing, acute toxicity, and skin sensitization will also be provided.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제29권5호
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• pp.943-947
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• 2008

A phosphate-specific and fluorescent probe was prepared for label-free phosphatase assays based on fluorescence polarization. By using the probe, dephosphorylation reactions of DNA and protein substrates by calf intestinal alkaline phosphatase (CIP) could effectively be monitored in real-time. Since this assay method does not require additional materials such as labeled substrates and phosphospecific antibodies to obtain fluorescence polarization signals, it is simple, cost-effective, and expected to be useful not only for measuring activity of phosphatases but also for high-throughput screening of phosphatase inhibitors.