Abstract

Enabling Early Stage Muscle Drug Discovery with MyoScreen™, a High-throughput High-content Phenotypic Screening Platform Deploying Micropatterned Human Primary Skeletal Myotubes

Joanne Young, Senior Scientist, Cytoo SA

CYTOO has recently developed a disease relevant phenotypic muscle drug discovery platform to fully leverage the characterization of compounds at an early stage of the drug discovery pipeline. MyoScreen™ deploys imaging and image-analysis methodology along with a micropatterned plate system that allows the precise control of myotube length and the formation of highly aligned myotubes.
In this seminar, I will discuss the robust performance of the MyoScreen™ platform and show how it exploits the improved architecture and maturity of micropatterned myotubes, which are superior to standard 2D culture, to quantitatively analyze drug effects on proliferation, hypertrophy/atrophy, acetylcholine receptors, as well as providing a screening index of contractile force. I will also describe actual use of MyoScreen™ in a primary screen with secondary hit validation, focusing on two intriguing hits that were identified to enhance myotube function by distinct mechanisms of action.