A Fully Automated High-Throughput Flow Cytometry Screening System Enabling Phenotypic Drug Discovery.

The goal of high-throughput screening is to enable screening of compound libraries in an automated manner to identify quality starting points for optimization. This often involves screening a large diversity of compounds in an assay that preserves a connection to the disease pathology. Phenotypic screening is a powerful tool for drug identification, in that assays can be run without prior understanding of the target and with primary cells that closely mimic the therapeutic setting.

CXCR4 expression in prostate cancer progenitor cells.

Tumor progenitor cells represent a population of drug-resistant cells that can survive conventional chemotherapy and lead to tumor relapse. However, little is known of the role of tumor progenitors in prostate cancer metastasis. The studies reported herein show that the CXCR4/CXCL12 axis, a key regulator of tumor dissemination, plays a role in the maintenance of prostate cancer stem-like cells.

An RNAi screen identifies TRRAP as a regulator of brain tumor-initiating cell differentiation.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly aggressive form of brain cancer associated with a very poor prognosis. Recently, the initiation and growth of GBM has been linked to brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs), which are poorly differentiated and share features with neural stem cells (NSCs). Here we describe a kinome-wide RNA interference screen to identify factors that control the tumorigenicity of BTICs.

Expansion of Bcr-Abl-positive leukemic stem cells is dependent on Hedgehog pathway activation.

Resistance of Bcr-Abl-positive leukemic stem cells (LSCs) to imatinib treatment in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) can cause relapse of disease and might be the origin for emerging drug-resistant clones. In this study, we identified Smo as a drug target in Bcr-Abl-positive LSCs. We show that Hedgehog signaling is activated in LSCs through upregulation of Smo.

Substrate optimization for monitoring cathepsin C activity in live cells.

A series of peptidic fluorogenic substrates were synthesized to develop a flow cytometry assay (FACS) to monitor the proteolytic activity of cathepsin C in live cells. Of the 16 substrates tested, (NH(2)-aminobutyric-homophenylalanine)(2)-rhodamine demonstrated the best reactivity and selectivity profile in the FACS assay using the B721 human B-lymphoblastoid cell line. The resulting FACS assay was validated through correlation of the IC(50) values with a competitive radiolabeling assay against a series of small molecule inhibitors of cathepsin C.