Huntington’s disease (HD) is a devastating, genetic neurodegenerative disease caused by a tri-nucleotide expansion in exon 1 of the huntingtin gene. HD is clinically characterized by chorea, emotional and psychiatric disturbances and cognitive deficits with later symptoms including rigidity and dementia. Pathologically, the cortico-striatal pathway is severely dysfunctional as reflected by striatal and cortical atrophy in late-stage disease. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a neuroprotective, secreted protein that binds with high affinity to the extracellular domain of the tropomyosin-receptor kinase B (TrkB) receptor promoting neuronal cell survival by activating the receptor and down-stream signaling proteins. Reduced cortical BDNF production and transport to the striatum have been implicated in HD pathogenesis; the ability to enhance TrkB signaling using a BDNF mimetic might be beneficial in disease progression, so we explored this as a therapeutic strategy for HD. Using recombinant and native assay formats, we report here the evaluation of TrkB antibodies and a panel of reported small molecule TrkB agonists, and identify the best candidate, from those tested, for in vivo proof of concept studies in transgenic HD models.

Malaria is responsible for approximately 1 million deaths annually; thus, continued efforts to discover new antimalarials are required. A HTS screen was established to identify novel inhibitors of the parasite's mitochondrial enzyme NADH:quinone oxidoreductase (PfNDH2). On the basis of only one known inhibitor of this enzyme, the challenge was to discover novel inhibitors of PfNDH2 with diverse chemical scaffolds. To this end, using a range of ligand-based chemoinformatics methods, ∼17000 compounds were selected from a commercial library of ∼750000 compounds. Forty-eight compounds were identified with PfNDH2 enzyme inhibition IC50 values ranging from 100 nM to 40 μM and also displayed exciting whole cell antimalarial activity. These novel inhibitors were identified through sampling 16% of the available chemical space, while only screening 2% of the library. This study confirms the added value of using multiple ligand-based chemoinformatic approaches and has successfully identified novel distinct chemotypes primed for development as new agents against malaria.

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Charles River (CR) has developed many disease-relevant cellular models to screen small molecules and genetic modifiers for target and phenotypic based drug discovery. Our expertise and portfolio in bespoke oncology model development (e.g. patient derived xenografts) covers a wide variety of target classes such as inhibitors of cell cycle, cellular motility and migration and transcription factor translocation. Complex cellular models derived from primary cells, patient derived embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells have been adapted for phenotypic screening. Models have been further developed to produce physiologically relevant multicellular structure co-cultures. Combining complex biological systems with multiparametric high content analysis provides detailed single cell quantification of cellular and subcellular biology. Such validated High Content assays can be applied to both target and phenotypic based drug-discovery platforms to support preclinical drug discovery and improve translation of targets and compounds to the clinic. Citation Format: Servane Lachize, Rhea van de Bospoort, Marta da Silva da Silva, Niki van der Steentraten, Ian Gowers, Roger Clark, Jeroen DeGroot, Ian Waddell, Hajo Schiewe, Shushant Jain. High content analysis of 2D and 3D oncology models for target and phenotypic drug discovery [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 986.

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