A cRel bioassay as a predictive model of drug efficacy in a repurposing drug screen for head and neck squamous cell cancers

National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences

Investigators

Abstract

During this period, the project team optimized an immunocytochemistry assay for 384 and 1536-well formats, to perform high-content imaging capable of quantifying cRel nuclear localization. Additionally, analysis procedures were refined to improve intra-assay performance. The optimized assay was utilized to perform throughput screening of the NCATS approved drugs collection and bioactive tool molecule collection. Insight into biological mechanisms that control cRel nuclear localization was gained using SCOPE, a recently developed computational approach. Hit compounds were subjected to rounds of confirmatory testing and the validated compounds are currently being tested in several head and neck squamous cell carcinoma lines.