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

PerkinElmer，Inc.是开发人类和环境健康研究设备的全球领先者，在安大略省伍德布里奇设有一个研发部门。最近，PerkinElmer，Inc.开发了新一代研究工具，能够使用无标记技术量化细胞形态的细微变化。这一新的方法被证明在基于细胞的分析以及信号通路的识别中具有高度的相关性。然而，目前在营养和代谢领域还没有商业上的无标签应用。因此，该公司打算开发新的高通量筛选细胞分析方法，以确定与代谢相关的器官和组织中的营养命运。PerkinElmer公司目前还没有这种专业知识。为了规避这一点，该公司与年轻的研究人员David H St-Pierre建立了新的合作伙伴关系。David H St-Pierre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渗透的早期步骤中的影响。尽管这些模型已经被证明是高度相关的，但它们的实用性目前受到它们所需的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内过度沉积的因素之间的相互作用。因此，David H St-Pierre的研究小组和PerkinElmer之间的合作伙伴关系打算使用成熟的模型来开发生物检测方法，以表征肝细胞和未分化的骨骼肌细胞中单一和/或组合形式的脂类的影响。从长远来看，这些分析还将允许确定其他类型的营养物质和其他因素对广泛的细胞模型中脂质过度积累的影响，这些细胞模型来自不同的非相关或代谢相关的器官和组织。更好地了解营养储存和新陈代谢的调节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.