Platform
Drug Discovery /
Functional Genomics
Pooled high content phenotypic screens of genes and drugs. Compatible with multiple libraries including CRISPR gRNAs, shRNAs, antibodies, and even small molecule compounds.
Pooled High-Content Screening of Genes and Drugs
Our Solution for Drug Discovery
Image-based high-content screening (HCS) is a powerful method
for identifying genes compounds that induce physiologically
relevant disease-linked cellular phenotypes. However, it is
time-consuming expensive due to its reliance on
well-to-well imaging of microplates.
Using ThinkCyte’s proprietary machine Vision-based Cell Sorting
technology, we have developed a new method that enables
high-throughput image-based HCS in a pooled format. This novel
method is compatible with various types of libraries, including
CRISPR gRNAs, shRNAs, antibodies, peptides, small molecule compounds.
From array to pool
Key Advantages of Our
Technology
Compatible with
a wide range of libraries
Small molecule libraries, CRISPR, shRNA, peptide, phage libraries, etc.
High speed sorting
・Pathway-specific libraries: 1–3 h
・Whole-genome libraries: 8–12 h
・Compound libraries (~100,000 compounds): 1–3 d
For precious cells
Only a few hundred cells per gene/compound are required for screening
Link genotypes to phenotypes
Image data is linked to the NGS data
Phenotype-driven Target Validation in Drug Discovery
In the phenotypic screening process, identification of disease relevant phenotypes is crucial. Our screening platform is able to detect various types of phenotypes, such as changes in protein localization, aggregation, and cell and organelle morphology, using fluorescence reporters. Furthermore, our proprietary machine vision-based classification technique can discriminate morphological differences of cells including live and apoptotic cells, differentiated and undifferentiated cells, and healthy and disease relevant cells, without the use of molecular labels. These label-free phenotypes can be also used in our screening system.
Disease-relevant phenotypes of cells
Fluorescence
of Interest
Nuclear
Translocation
PPI,
Aggregation
Organelle
Morphology
Flow
Cytometer
(Amnis)
-
LPS（+）
-
LPS（-）
-
Untreated
-
Nutlin-3
-
Mitochondria
-
Lysosome
Label-free
Apoptotic Status
Differentiation
Disease vs Healthy
Flow
Cytometer
(Amnis)
-
Live
-
Apoptotic
-
Differentiated
-
Undifferentiated
-
Cancerous
-
Healthy
Screening Workflows
Our screening platform enables image-based high-content screens in a pooled format and can dramatically accelerate the screening process while reducing costs. It is compatible with a wide range of libraries, including CRISPR gRNAs, shRNAs, antibodies, peptides, and small molecule compounds.
Pooled screening of genes
Our technology is applicable for genetic screens using lentivirus libraries, including CRISPR libraries.
Pooled screening of drugs
Combining our proprietary Ghost Cytometry technology with DNA barcoding and droplet techniques, image-based high-content screens can be performed for small molecule libraries in a pooled format as well.
