Cell lines and assay development services

Our fully-integrated cell lines development offer includes:

• target sequence cloning in our high-copy bicistronic expression vector
• transfection in the most appropriate host cell
• selection of stable pool or clonal selection
• characterization of the cell line using one of our available functional or binding readout
• cell line can be transferred

Orthologue GPCR cell line development

Rhesus monkey CCR2 cell line development and characterization using an Aequorin (calcium) functional assay. Cell line was further validated in a binding assay.

We have successfully developed cell lines in these backgrounds:

• CHO-K1
• HEK293
• 1321N1
• U2OS
• we’d love to try new ones….

Specialized assays to further characterize your compounds

Aside from our standard pharmacology assays for potency, efficacy, and affinity determination, we have developed specialized assays to bridge the gap between in vitro and in vivo data. Such as k_on/k_off determination, chemotaxis, biomarkers production (insulin, IFNγ, TNFα…).

Kinetics of competitive binding for k_on/k_off determination

Direct kinetics of ligand-receptor interactions are not Always taken into account in the optimization of a drug’s pharmacokinetics properties. However, several studies have shown that slow dissociation rates in vitro can be associated to long-acting effects of a compound in vivo. This important parameter can be measured as the rate at which the complex dissociates (expressed as k_off or dissociative half-life) into the free ligand and its target protein. The dissociative half-life has been connected to improved clinical efficacy in a large number of marketed drugs.

Cell migration assay (recombinant and primary cells)

Cell migration is a fundamental function of normal cellular processes, including embryonic development, angiogenesis, wound healing, immune response, and inflammation. One of these processes, leukocyte extravasation, is crucial for appropriate and effective immune response. Leukocytes normally exist in a resting state as they circulate through the body. However, upon interaction with small molecules known as chemoattractants, they rapidly respond with endothelial adhesion followed by emigration from the vasculature and chemotaxis to the site of inflammation.

Cytokine release from LPS-stimulated human PBMC

The human LPS-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) is a good preliminary profiling assay to evaluate a compound’s effect on inflammatory cytokine production.

Glucose-Stimulated Insulin Secretion (GSIS) from isolated rat pancreatic β-islets

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is a devastating worldwide public health problem. Drug therapies are available to address this disease, but the common occurrence of side-effects, or lack of efficacy after long-term treatment causes concern. Moreover, the growing patient population suffering from T2D and associated metabolic diseases creates a demand for new therapies.

Testing candidate compounds for insulin secretion on freshly-isolated rat pancreatic islets allows to quickly and cost-effectively screen for those likely to perform better before moving to in vivo models.

Freshly-isolated rat pancreatic islets were incubated with increasing concentrations of glucose, in presence or absence of GLP-1(7-36) peptide. Cell supernatant was harvested and insulin was quantified by HTRF.

Off-the-shelf and custom-based enzymatic assays
 

Enzymes represent a fast-growing class of targets in the drug discovery industry, as principal targets for screening like kinases or epigenetic modulators, or as potential safety issues when assessing off-target effects. consequently we have recently put our scintific expertise to the development and validation of several enzymatic assasy including kinases, MAO, COMT, PDE, COX or AchE.