A novel assay for high-throughput screening of anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs to determine their efficacy by real-time monitoring of changes in PC12 cell proliferation

Hou,Xue-Qin; Yan,Rong; Yang,Cong; Zhang,Lei; Su,Ru-Yu; Liu,Si-Jun; Zhang,Shi-Jie; He,Wen-Qing; Fang,Shu-Huan; Cheng,Shu-Yi; Su,Zi-Ren; Chen,Yun-Bo; Wang,Qi

doi:10.3892/ijmm.2013.1608

2014-March Volume 33 Issue 3

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2014-March Volume 33 Issue 3

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A novel assay for high-throughput screening of anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs to determine their efficacy by real-time monitoring of changes in PC12 cell proliferation

Authors:
- Xue-Qin Hou
- Rong Yan
- Cong Yang
- Lei Zhang
- Ru-Yu Su
- Si-Jun Liu
- Shi-Jie Zhang
- Wen-Qing He
- Shu-Huan Fang
- Shu-Yi Cheng
- Zi-Ren Su
- Yun-Bo Chen
- Qi Wang
View Affiliations / Copyright

Affiliations: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, P.R. China

Copyright: © Hou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License [CC BY_NC 3.0].
Pages: 543-549
|
Published online on: December 27, 2013

https://doi.org/10.3892/ijmm.2013.1608
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Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by the accumulation of senile plaque and neurofibrilary tangle formation in the brain, including the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Nowadays, the first-line treatment for AD is the application of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. However, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are basically anti-symptomatic for a limited aspect of AD pathology and are associated with serious side-effects. With the advantage of multiple targets, pathways and systems, Chinese herbal compounds hold promising potential for the development of drugs for the treatment of AD. Over the past few years, with the development of Chinese herbal compounds and in vitro pharmacological studies, cell-based disease models are one of the main methods used to screen Chinese herbal compounds for potential efficacy. Testing the efficacy of possible anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs and the development of new drugs are hindered by the lack of objective high-throughput screening methods. Currently, the assessment of the effects of drugs is usually made by MTT assays, involving laborious, subjective, low-throughput methods. Herein, we suggest a novel application for a real-time cell monitoring device (xCELLigence) that can simply and objectively assess the effective composition of Chinese herbal compounds by assessing amyloid-β peptide Aβ1-42-induced apoptosis in PC12 cells. We detected the proliferation and motility of the cells using a fully automated high-throughput and real-time system. We quantitatively assessed cell motility and determined the real-time IC50 values of various anti-AD drugs that intervene in several developmental stages of Aβ1-42-induced apoptosis in PC12 cells, Then, we identified the optimal time phase by curative efficacy. Our data indicate that this technique may aid in the discovery and development of novel anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs. It is possible to utilize a similar technique to measure changes in electrical impedance as cells attach and spread in a culture dish covered with a gold microelectrode array that covers approximately 80% of the area on the bottom of a well. As cells attach and spread on the electrode surface, it leads to an increase in electrical impedance of 9-12. The impedance is displayed as a dimensionless parameter termed the cell index, which is directly proportional to the total area of tissue culture well that is covered by the cells. Hence, the cell index can be used to monitor cell adhesion, spreading, morphological variation and cell density.

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Journals

International Journal of Molecular Medicine

International Journal of Oncology

Molecular Medicine Reports

Oncology Reports

Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine

Oncology Letters

Biomedical Reports

Molecular and Clinical Oncology

World Academy of Sciences Journal

International Journal of Functional Nutrition

International Journal of Epigenetics

Medicine International

A novel assay for high-throughput screening of anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs to determine their efficacy by real-time monitoring of changes in PC12 cell proliferation

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