Senior Researcher Institut Pasteur Korea Seongnam, Kyonggi-do, Republic of Korea
Abstract: High-throughput screening and cell painting techniques that enable phenotypic profiling are becoming increasingly versatile and central to successful drug discovery pipelines; however, these require cell fixation and multiple staining steps. ChromaLive (Saguaro Technologies) Dyes applies cell painting technology in live cells to measure phenotypic changes. The unique staining and spectral properties of the dye can detect various cellular states such as cell survival, death, apoptosis, quiescence, ER stress, and autophagy. We leverage ChromaLive's distinctive properties to profile compounds in live cell kinetic mode. First, we acquired standardized images of stained cells treated with compounds of known function and analyzed them using cell painting techniques to extract thousands of features at a single level population. The obtained profiles can then be used to build and discover dynamic associations between the cellular states over the treatment course of each compound. We finally applied StratoMineR™ (Core Life Analytics), a web-based data analysis platform with built-in modules to seamlessly measure and investigate the phenotypic outcomes from ChromaLive staining. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility and utility of live cell dyes to profile compounds in an effortless workflow over conventional fixed staining techniques.
