Molecular Screening & Protein Expression Facility

The MOLECULAR SCREENING & PROTEIN EXPRESSION SHARED RESOURCE fosters collaboration and enables researchers to discover small molecule compounds and molecular genetic targets suitable to further study protein functions, signaling pathways, and cells in pure or complex biological systems. The Facility provides access to small molecule and lentiviral shRNA libraries, laboratory robotics, high-throughput screens (HTS), data analysis and interpretation, and post-screen advancement. Guidance is provided for target justification, assay development, miniaturization, robotic automation, and adaptation to HTS-compatible, high-density microplate (384-well) formats.

Expert technical assistance is available in designing biochemical and cell-based functional assays for compound testing and/or high- throughput screening, characterizing binding interactions using label-free surface plasmon resonance, and recombinant protein production/ purification in bacteria.

• Development and optimization of miniaturized biochemical and cell-based assays.
  • Receptor binding and functional assays, enzyme assays, protein-protein, protein-nucleic acid interaction assays
  • Cytotoxicity assays (caspase, mitochondria membrane potential, live cells), reporter gene assays, cell signaling assays
  • High-content cell-based assays in 96-well plates
  • Biophysical, label-free assays using Biacore, thermal shift, or ITC
• Assessment of bimolecular interactions using label-free SPR
• High-throughput screening and pharmacological profiling of small molecule libraries
• Data analysis and interpretation
• Drug combination studies screening for synergistic cytotoxicity
• Hit validation and quantitative assessment of compound activity requires for post-screen advancement
• Small molecule analytical services
• Western blotting and in-cell western assays
• Consultation, training, project management, and grant preparation

Protein:

• Expression plasmid engineering
• Recombinant protein production and purification from bacteria
• Lentivirus preparation

• Echo 650 Acoustic liquid handler with Access Workstation
• Biacore T200
• PerkinElmer Operetta High-Content Screening reader
• ClarioStar Plus PlateReader
• EnVision multi-label microplate reader
• Cytation 5 plate reader/cell imager
• Janus Verispan 8-tipautomated pipetting workstation
• Janus MDT automated pipetting workstation
• MicroFlo reagent dispensers
• Agilent HPLC system
• Access to a FACSCalibur with auto-sampler, TopCount NTX and Applied Biosystems 7900HT
• Libraries and sub-libraries of compounds spanning various pathways and targets – contact the facility for more information
• BSL-1 and BSL-2 tissue culture suites
• TRCN shRNA library of druggable genome