The Challenge
The Oncology team at the SENS Research Foundation seeks to uncover the role of telomere lengthening in cancer development. The Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) pathway accounts for about 10-15% of cancers, yet no ALT-specific anticancer therapeutics currently exist.
Little is known about ALT and few labs study the pathway. Existing protocols were time consuming, and methodologies varied making it difficult to collect statistically-relevant data. The lack of robust and functional ALT-relevant assays had slowed progress.
Sens Research Foundation
The Solution
To better characterize ALT activity, a high-content assay utilizing the ImageXpress® Micro system was established and validated to identify ALT-positive cells. This high-content imaging workflow is not only ~20 times faster than the previous protocol, but also provides a standardized approach for assay development in this field.
Products Used
ImageXpress Micro 4 High-Content Imaging System
The ImageXpress Micro 4 system is a high-throughput, widefield, automated imaging solution enabling a wide range of cellular assays. It features our proprietary fast frame rate technology, allowing for the capture of fast biological processes. The system is also highly configurable and able to adapt to changing research needs.
- Fast acquisition: greater than 245,000 wells can be captured per day
- Powerful analysis: MetaXpress software featuring turnkey and custom application modules
- Flexible imaging: assortment of user-changeable objectives and filters
The Results
The addition of the ImageXpress Micro system has allowed the team to be more ambitious. Before the HCS assay, only a few 8-well slides were analyzed in a week. Afterwards, analysis of 100 96-well plates was attainable in the same timeframe.
"Now I can screen a whole library of genes and find the group of genes that are responsible for the ALT pathway."