scholarly journals Discovery of Selective Cannabinoid CB2 Receptor Agonists by High-Throughput Screening

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Ogawa ◽  
Neil T. Burford ◽  
Yu-Hsien Liao ◽  
Caitlin E. Scott ◽  
Ashley M. Hine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
Immune Modulation ◽  
Cannabinoid Receptors ◽  
Endocannabinoid System ◽  
Allosteric Modulators ◽  
Peripheral Tissues ◽  
Selective Agonists

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) plays a diverse role in human physiology ranging from the regulation of mood and appetite to immune modulation and the response to pain. Drug development that targets the cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2) has been explored; however, success in the clinic has been limited by the psychoactive side effects associated with modulation of the neuronally expressed CB1 that are enriched in the CNS. CB2, however, are expressed in peripheral tissues, primarily in immune cells, and thus development of CB2-selective drugs holds the potential to modulate pain among other indications without eliciting anxiety and other undesirable side effects associated with CB1 activation. As part of a collaborative effort among industry and academic laboratories, we performed a high-throughput screen designed to discover selective agonists or positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) of CB2. Although no CB2 PAMs were identified, 167 CB2 agonists were discovered here, and further characterization of four select compounds revealed two with high selectivity for CB2 versus CB1. These results broaden drug discovery efforts aimed at the ECS and may lead to the development of novel therapies for immune modulation and pain management with improved side effect profiles.

scholarly journals Characterization of Endocannabinoid System and Interleukin Profiles in Ovine AEC: Cannabinoid Receptors Type-1 and Type-2 as Key Effectors of Pro-Inflammatory Response

Cells ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luana Greco ◽  
Valentina Russo ◽  
Cinzia Rapino ◽  
Clara Di Germanio ◽  
Filomena Fezza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Immune Modulation ◽  
Cannabinoid Receptors ◽  
Endocannabinoid System ◽  
Middle Stage ◽  
Selective Agonists ◽  
Anti Inflammatory

Amniotic epithelial cells (AEC) have been proposed as promising clinical candidates for regenerative medicine therapies due to their immunomodulatory capacity. In this context, the endocannabinoid system (ECS) has been identified as mediating the immune-stem cell dialogue, even if no information on AEC is available to date. Therefore, this study was designed to assess whether ECS is involved in tuning the constitutive and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced ovine AEC anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory interleukin (IL-10, IL-4, and IL-12) profiles. Firstly, interleukins and ECS expressions were studied at different stages of gestation. Then, the role of cannabinoid receptors 1 and 2 (CB1 and CB2) on interleukin expression and release was investigated in middle stage AEC using selective agonists and antagonists. AEC displayed a degradative more than a synthetic endocannabinoid metabolism during the early and middle stages of gestation. At the middle stage, cannabinoid receptors mediated the balance between pro-inflammatory (IL-12) and anti-inflammatory (IL-4 and IL-10) interleukins. The activation of both receptors mediated an overall pro-inflammatory shift—CB1 reduced the anti-inflammatory and CB2 increased the pro-inflammatory interleukin release, particularly after LPS stimulation. Altogether, these data pave the way for the comprehension of AEC mechanisms tuning immune-modulation, crucial for the development of new AEC-based therapy protocols.

scholarly journals High-Throughput Screening for Positive Allosteric Modulators Identified Potential Therapeutics against Acetylcholinesterase Inhibition

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 1142-1149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard R. Chapleau ◽  
Craig A. McElroy ◽  
Christopher D. Ruark ◽  
Emily J. Fleming ◽  
Amy B. Ghering ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Acetylcholinesterase Inhibition ◽  
Therapeutic Window ◽  
Ache Inhibitor ◽  
Allosteric Modulators ◽  
Current Standard ◽  
Positive Allosteric Modulators

The current standard of care for treatment of organophosphate (OP) poisoning includes pretreatment with the weak reversible acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor pyridostigmine bromide. Because this drug is an AChE inhibitor, similar side effects exist as with OP poisoning. In an attempt to provide a therapeutic capable of mitigating AChE inhibition without such side effects, high-throughput screening was performed to identify a compound capable of increasing the catalytic activity of AChE. Herein, two such novel positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) of AChE are presented. These PAMs increase AChE activity threefold, but they fail to upshift the apparent IC50 of a variety of OPs. Further development and optimization of these compounds may lead to pre- and/or postexposure therapeutics with broad-spectrum efficacy against pesticide and nerve agent poisoning. In addition, they could be used to complement the current therapeutic standard of care to increase the activity of uninhibited AChE, potentially increasing the efficacy of current therapeutics in addition to altering the therapeutic window.

High-Throughput Screening and Characterization of a High-Density Soybean Mutant Library Elucidate the Biosynthesis Pathway of Triterpenoid Saponins

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1082-1097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panneerselvam Krishnamurthy ◽  
Yukiko Fujisawa ◽  
Yuya Takahashi ◽  
Hanako Abe ◽  
Kentaro Yamane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
High Density ◽  
Biosynthesis Pathway ◽  
Mutant Library ◽  
Triterpenoid Saponins

scholarly journals Staphylococcus aureus DNA ligase: characterization of its kinetics of catalysis and development of a high-throughput screening compatible chemiluminescent hybridization protection assay

2004 ◽  
Vol 383 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheraz GUL ◽  
Richard BROWN ◽  
Earl MAY ◽  
Marie MAZZULLA ◽  
Martin G. SMYTH ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Staphylococcus Aureus ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
Dna Ligase ◽  
Protection Assay ◽  
Dna Ligases ◽  
Enzyme Substrate ◽  
Ic50 Values ◽  
Acridinium Ester

DNA ligases are key enzymes involved in the repair and replication of DNA. Prokaryotic DNA ligases uniquely use NAD+ as the adenylate donor during catalysis, whereas eukaryotic enzymes use ATP. This difference in substrate specificity makes the bacterial enzymes potential targets for therapeutic intervention. We have developed a homogeneous chemiluminescence-based hybridization protection assay for Staphylococcus aureus DNA ligase that uses novel acridinium ester technology and demonstrate that it is an alternative to the commonly used radiometric assays for ligases. The assay has been used to determine a number of kinetic constants for S. aureus DNA ligase catalysis. These included the Km values for NAD+ (2.75±0.1 μM) and the acridinium-ester-labelled DNA substrate (2.5±0.2 nM). A study of the pH-dependencies of kcat, Km and kcat/Km has revealed values of kinetically influential ionizations within the enzyme–substrate complexes (kcat) and free enzyme (kcat/Km). In each case, the curves were shown to be composed of one kinetically influential ionization, for kcat, pKa=6.6±0.1 and kcat/Km, pKa=7.1±0.1. Inhibition characteristics of the enzyme against two Escherichia coli DNA ligase inhibitors have also been determined with IC50 values for these being 3.30±0.86 μM for doxorubicin and 1.40±0.07 μM for chloroquine diphosphate. The assay has also been successfully miniaturized to a sufficiently low volume to allow it to be utilized in a high-throughput screen (384-well format; 20 μl reaction volume), enabling the assay to be used in screening campaigns against libraries of compounds to discover leads for further drug development.

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