• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Sunday, June 15, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Drug detectives

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 9, 2015
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
ADVERTISEMENT
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

A good drug is hard to design: to garner FDA approval and reach consumers, it must not only effectively treat a medical condition, but it must also do so without having side effects that outweigh its benefits.

drug detectives

This is gramicidin, a membrane-spanning protein used to monitor lipid bilayer disruption in the Gramicidin-Based Fluorescence Assay. Photo Credit: Andersen Lab, Weil Cornell Medical College

Sometimes, toxic side effects aren’t discovered until fairly late in the drug development process, when substantial amounts of time and money have already been invested in clinical trials. Even though the pharmaceutical industry uses preclinical data and predictive algorithms to weed out drugs that are likely to fail because of toxicity, many still slip through the cracks.

Now, a group of researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City has devised a new drug screen that capitalizes on the tendency of toxic compounds to alter the properties of the lipid bilayer that encases cells. They will present their screening method at the 59th annual meeting of the Biophysical Society, held Feb. 7-11 in Baltimore, Md.

Changes to the properties of the lipid bilayer component of the cell membrane can alter the function of proteins embedded in the membrane — proteins that regulate critical functions such as transport of materials in and out of the cell and communication with other cells.

The new screen, called the Gramicidin-Based Fluorescence Assay (GBFA), repurposes an assay previously developed by principal investigator Olaf Andersen and a former graduate student Helgi Ingólfsson. It tracks changes in the activity of a small protein (the gramicidin channel) coupled to a fluorescence signal as a way of monitoring changes in lipid bilayer properties, a correlate for toxicity.

“As we gathered data, we began to notice a trend: molecules that significantly affected lipid bilayer properties were often indiscriminate modifiers of membrane protein function and thus tended to have an array of off-target effects,” said researcher Lea Sanford. That is, when compounds intended to influence a specific protein target also alter lipid bilayer properties, they may alter the function of numerous membrane proteins and thereby cause a cascade of usually unwanted off-target and side effects.

Sanford and her colleagues wanted to see whether changes in lipid bilayer properties were reliably correlated with a drug’s toxicity to cells, or cytotoxicity. To test the hypothesis, they did a blinded screen of 134 compounds provided by The Rockefeller University’s High-Throughput Screening Center. Indeed, the toxic compounds in the database, which had been characterized using high-content cytotoxicity screening, showed greater rates of fluorescence quenching. The greater a molecule’s bilayer-modifying effect (the faster the fluorescent signal decreased during the assay), the higher the likelihood it would be toxic. It appears that, as the team expected, the test could be used to identify probable cytotoxic drugs.

“This is our first study on toxicity and our results imply that the GBFA is a viable, cheap and straightforward option for predicting which compounds are likely to have off-target effects and potentially be cytotoxic, thus having the potential to indicate likely drug failures at an early stage in the development process,” said Sanford. “We need to expand the library of compounds tested to more thoroughly vet the assay’s use in this way.”

The researchers also emphasized that changes in bilayer properties are not inherently negative. In some cases, the off-target effects of a drug could make it useful for treating conditions other than the one for which it was originally developed.

“A molecule may be toxic for many reasons that do not involve the bilayer, but it is striking how increased bilayer activity tends to be associated with toxicity,” noted Andersen. “The cool thing about this project is that it shows that lipid bilayers will continue to surprise us.”

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Nerve Fiber Changes in Parkinson’s and Atypical Parkinsonism

Nerve Fiber Changes in Parkinson’s and Atypical Parkinsonism

June 15, 2025
Perivascular Fluid Diffusivity Predicts Early Parkinson’s Decline

Perivascular Fluid Diffusivity Predicts Early Parkinson’s Decline

June 14, 2025

SP140–RESIST Pathway Controls Antiviral Immunity

June 11, 2025

Food-Sensitive Olfactory Circuit Triggers Anticipatory Satiety

June 11, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Green brake lights in the front could reduce accidents

    Study from TU Graz Reveals Front Brake Lights Could Drastically Diminish Road Accident Rates

    159 shares
    Share 64 Tweet 40
  • New Study Uncovers Unexpected Side Effects of High-Dose Radiation Therapy

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • Pancreatic Cancer Vaccines Eradicate Disease in Preclinical Studies

    69 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 17
  • How Scientists Unraveled the Mystery Behind the Gigantic Size of Extinct Ground Sloths—and What Led to Their Demise

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

MOVEO Project Launched in Málaga to Revolutionize Mobility Solutions Across Europe

Nerve Fiber Changes in Parkinson’s and Atypical Parkinsonism

Magnetic Soft Millirobot Enables Simultaneous Locomotion, Sensing

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.