Automating Toxicology Studies with High-Content Screening
Toxicology studies involve working out how a compound causes undesirable effects to living organisms. Normally, this means trying to understand how the toxicological substance causes damage at the cellular level and whether it has any additional adverse effects.
There are a number of analytical and biological methods that are used in toxicological studies, but one of the most information-rich techniques can be high content screening.1 High-content screening typically involves using automated microscopy alongside image analysis methods to measure and understand what changes have occurred in a cell phenotype following exposure to a toxic compound.
For toxicology studies, the advantage of high-content screening is that, with the right equipment and analysis tools, it can be automated. The information provided in a high-content screening study can be used to assess toxicological information for a variety of cell types and the large amounts of information recovered in the images also mean that high-content screening is a highly sensitive technique for even small changes at the cellular level.1
Automation in High Content Screening
Taking full advantage of high-content screening does require a large degree of automation. A common approach to high-content screening is to use fluorescence microscopy with fluorophores that emit at a number of different wavelengths. This way, either through the use of filters while acquiring the data or post-processing, the images can be analyzed for specific fluorophores which in turn act as reporters on their local cellular environment. By using live/dead cell stains, Live vs. dead cells can readily be distinguished and quantified using fluorescence imaging. The Live/dead toxicology assay serves to assess cell viability in the presence of various compounds and their combinations.
Collecting the number of images that a high-content screening study requires is quite time-consuming, so automation of the process can help both standardize measurement conditions in a non-biased manner and avoid labor-intensive acquisition processes.
At IDEA-Bio, we offer a number of automation solutions to help you integrate the advantages of high-content screening into your toxicology workflows. As well as offering technical advice and support on choosing a high-content screening platform, we offer an extensive range of machine-learning-based and alternative image analysis tools for high-content screening. WiSoft Athena image analysis software applies unique image analysis algorithms of quantitative cytometry and subpopulation tools to allow users at any level of proficiency to perform reliable toxicology measurements quickly and simply. Hundreds to thousands of microscopy images can be automatically analyzed within minutes, and results are readily presented on informative graphics with easy visualization tools. .
Our high-content screening platforms, including the HERMES, are designed to be highly flexible and customizable to an individual researcher or organization’s needs. To help you get started with high-content screening, we offer a number of automated image analysis apps that can be used to evaluate cell viability and therefore be used for toxicity dose studies and drug discovery applications.
Optimization of Drug Development
The drug discovery field commonly uses the toxicology assay to evaluate drug candidates. Often, toxicology research needs to be compliant with various regulatory standards, meaning the research needs to be conducted to the highest degree of reproducibility. We can help you achieve the necessary standards in your high-content screening procedure, reach statistically significant data so that you can work out whether a potential treatment is viable in a faster and more efficient way.
If you are considering switching to high-content imaging processes for your toxicology work, we can help you evaluate what the return on investment of a high-content screening platform would be and work out what efficiency savings you could make.
Contact us today to find out how their tailor-made analysis software could help you with your toxicology research and unleash the full power of high-content screening imaging.
References and further reading:
- Li, S., & Xia, M. (2019). Review of High content Screening Applications in Toxicology. Arch Toxicol., 93(12), 3387–3396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-019-02593-5.Review
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