Chemotaxis screen could yield new immune system drugs
compounds, can benefit from a new type of cell analysis system
developed by Guava Technologies. These processes are extensively
studied in cancer research and drug discovery labs.
The Guava Express assay, when used in conjunction with a Guava Personal Cell Analysis (PCA) system can be used to conduct and identify compounds that inhibit chemotaxis (the migration of cells towards or away from a chemical stimulus) in an accurate and reproducible manner.
Chemotaxis is especially evident in immune cells where their mobilisation and deployment to sites of inflammation is an integral part of the immune response.
This process can be measured at its initiation by assaying for actin polymerisation within cells. An actin assay can be readily adopted to identify drug compounds that enhance or inhibit chemotaxis or to study pathways involved in chemotaxis.
Angela Schultz, director of marketing at Guava Technologies said: "Chemotaxis is an important area of study for immunologists, cancer researchers and drug discovery labs."
"Use of the Guava PCA and Guava Express allows much greater ease and speed in identifying compounds that inhibit chemotaxis. The result is greater productivity in the lab, and faster decision making."
The Guava Express assay provides greater sensitivity for antigen detection in whole cells even in very low levels of the protein/antigen of interest. This is due to precise reagent labelling coupled with the unique illumination used within the Guava PCA systems.
Moderate to large-scale screening for chemotaxis or chemokine inhibitors is also possible since can be adopted for 96-well plates. The cells can be acquired and analysed on Guava's PCA range.
Chemokine receptors involved in chemotaxis belong to the G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) family, currently one of the most favoured drug targets for the pharmaceutical industry. It is estimated that 40 to 50 per cent of the currently marketed drugs interact with these proteins.
A future potential application of the actin polymerisation assay may be the inhibition of inflammatory cell recruitment - an appropriate therapeutic strategy in a number of inflammatory diseases. The chemokine receptors involved in this response are potential drug targets.
As well as detecting and quantifying filamentous actin, a physiological requirement for chemotaxis, the Guava PCA Actin Polymerisation assay also recognises actin polymerisation that occurs within seconds after receptor stimulation. The assay also has the advantage of allowing the screening of ligands that inhibit chemokine-induced actin polymerisation.
