Industrial partnership for the design of novel commercializable high-throughput screening cell-based assays

珀金埃尔默公司是人类和环境健康研究设备开发的全球领导者，在安大略的伍德布里奇设有研发部门。最近，PerkinElmer，Inc.阐述了新一代的研究工具，使量化细胞形态的微妙变化，使用无标记技术。这种新方法被证明在基于细胞的测定以及信号通路的识别中高度相关。然而，目前在营养和代谢领域还没有商业化的无标签应用。因此，该公司打算开发新的高通量筛选细胞为基础的测定，以确定代谢相关器官和组织中的营养命运。PerkinElmer，Inc.内部目前没有此类专业知识。为了规避这一点，该公司已经与年轻的研究人员大卫H圣皮埃尔建立了新的合作伙伴关系，他最近建立了细胞模型，用于研究生物活性产品在导致肝脏和骨骼肌过度脂质浸润的早期阶段的影响。虽然这些模式已被证明具有高度相关性，但其效用目前受到所需大量人力资源的限制。这主要是由于缺乏适当的高通量筛选工具来研究促进或防止脂肪在细胞中过度沉积的因素之间的相互作用。因此，大卫H圣皮埃尔研究小组和珀金埃尔默之间的这种合作关系旨在使用成熟的模型来开发生物测定法，以表征肝细胞和未分化骨骼肌细胞中单一和/或组合形式的脂质物质的影响。从长远来看，这些测定还将允许在来自不同非代谢相关或代谢相关器官和组织的广泛细胞模型中确定其他类型的营养素和其他因素对脂质过度积累的影响。更好地了解营养物质储存和代谢调节的机制可以应用于许多应用，如人类和动物健康以及农业中的肉类生产。

PerkinElmer, Inc. is a worldwide leader in the development of research equipment in human and environmental health with a R&D division in Woodbridge, Ontario. Recently, PerkinElmer, Inc. elaborated a new generation of research tools enabling to quantify subtle changes in cell morphology using the Label-free technology. This novel approach was shown to be highly relevant in cell-based assays as well as in the identification of signaling pathways. However, there is currently no commercial Label-free application in the area of nutrition and metabolism. Therefore, the company intends to develop novel high-throughput screening cell-based assays to determine nutrient fate in metabolically-relevant organs and tissues. This type of expertise is not presently available in-house at PerkinElmer, Inc. To circumvent this, the company has initiated a new partnership with David H St-Pierre, a young investigator who has recently established cellular models for investigating the effects of bioactive products in the early steps leading to excessive lipid infiltration in liver and skeletal muscle. Although these models have proven to be highly relevant, their utility is currently limited by the extensive human resources they require. This is mainly caused by the lack of appropriate high-throughput screening tools available to study the interaction between factors promoting or preventing the excessive deposition of fat in cells. This partnership between David H St-Pierre's research group and PerkinElmer therefore intends to use well- established models to develop bioassays to characterize the effects of single and/or combined forms of lipid species in hepatocytes and undifferentiated skeletal myocytes. On the long run, these assays will also allow defining the impact of other types of nutrients and other factors on the excessive accumulation of lipids in a wide range of cellular models derived from different non- or metabolically relevant organs and tissues. A better understanding of mechanisms underlying the regulation of nutrient storage and metabolism can be applied to a host of applications such as human and animal health as well as meat production in agriculture.