Cell Cycle Analysis
The cells which are actively undergoing cell cycle are targeted in cancer therapy as the DNA is relatively exposed during cell division and hence susceptible to damage by drugs or radiation. Cell cycle analysis is important for assessing potential cancer therapeutics. Our system provides a rapid, automated method for cell cycle analysis, can measure the cell cycle phase of individual cells and report population distributions, and to simultaneously correlate this with the presence or activation state of cell cycle-associated proteins in the same cell. Cell count and nuclear morphology are also reported.
Cell Viability Analysis
Cell viability is a determination of living or dead cells, based on a total cell sample. Analysis of cell viability can give researchers information about the ways in which cancers grow, act, and react to treatment. These statistics can better inform treatment or help doctors give patients more accurate statistics on outcomes of particular types of cancers. Cell viability tests might be used to calculate the effectiveness of a pesticide or insecticide, or evaluate environmental damage due to toxins. When a sample is stained with various dyes or treated with chemicals, it is then subject to microscopic examination to evaluate cell viability. Our system allows scientists to examine cells in many different ways.
Cell Motility Analysis
Cell motility is central to a number of biological and pathological processes. In the adult, cell migration is principal to homeostatic processes such as mounting an effective immune response and the repair of injured tissues. It also contributes to pathologies including vascular disease, chronic inflammatory diseases, and tumor formation and metastasis. Understanding cell migration is becoming important to emerging areas of biotechnology which focus on cellular transplantation and the manufacture of artificial tissues. Our system provides an automated method for measuring cell motility, visualizing and quantifying cell movement.
Cell Adhesion Analysis
Cell adhesion and spreading are multi-factorial events mediated by interactions between adhesion molecules on the cell surface and underlying extracellular matrices. Regulation of these events is central to a number of physiological processes including cancer cell metastasis, inflammation, and angiogenesis. Traditionally, cell adhesion and spreading measurements are labor intensive, requiring many manipulations of the cultures for microscopic evaluation of cell behavior. Our system conducts the measurement in an automated approach. Pharmaceutical researchers can use it to measure the rate of cell adhesion or spreading on a specific tissue in response to a drug candidate.
Cell Cytotoxicity Analysis
Determining the toxic effects of compounds is an essential part of the drug discovery/approval process. Following a toxic insult, cells may respond with changes in size and/or morphology depending on the cell type and the compound. Another common phenotypic feature of cytotoxicity is the loss of cell membrane integrity, which leads to the release of cytoplasmic enzymes. Our system provides users the cell cytotoxicity analysis with the ability to rapidly acquire information about changes to the following cellular properties: nuclear morphology/size, cell membrane permeability, lysosomal mass, and cell density.
GPCR Signaling Analysis
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. They are involved in many diseases, and are also the targets of around half of all modern medicinal drugs. A major focus of drug discovery research is finding more effective drugs that act upon these targets, as well as characterizing new ‘orphan’ receptors and validating them as drug targets. Our GPCR signaling analysis solution can quickly detect and quantify activation of different classes of G-protein coupled receptors, automatically classify phenotype based on sub-cellular target molecule distribution.
Molecular Translocation Analysis
Biological signal transduction is a complex process that involves activation and translocation of multiple signaling molecules. The majority of signaling events involve multiple interacting components and, in many instances, activation is coupled to movement of a target molecule from one location of a cell to another, transmitting a biological signal in the process. Our system is capable of measuring translocation events for several different fluorescently labeled targets. It can simultaneously quantify the activation and translocation of a combination of multiple transcription factors and/or kinases, and analyze the interactions between related or interacting signaling pathways – all in the same cell.
Micronucleus Analysis
Micronucleus (MN) formation is a hallmark of genetic toxicity; as such, micronuclei are used as indicators of genotoxicity caused by drug candidates or environmental toxins. Analysis of micronuclei is ideal for pre-investigational new drug and drug discovery. Existing in vitro assays for micronuclei induction are time-consuming, require multiple trained personnel, can be subjective, and are not automated. Our system provides an automated solution enables screening for indicators of genetic toxicity. It measures the frequency of micronuclei to determine genotoxicity accurately, as well as various indicators of cytotoxicity.
Cell Cycle Analysis