Assay Method Information

Assay Name:  Evaluation of Biological Activity
Description:  Compounds that enhance the Wnt activity, or Activators, were assayed as follows. Reporter cell lines were generated by stably transducing cells of colon cancer cell lines (with a lentiviral construct that included a Wnt-responsive promoter driving expression of the firefly luciferase gene).Lentiviral constructs were made in which the SP5 promoter, a promoter having eight TCF/LEF binding sites derived from the SP5 promoter, was linked upstream of the firefly luciferase gene. The lentiviral constructs also included a hygromycin resistance gene as a selectable marker. The SP5 promoter construct was used to transduce SW480 cells, a colon cancer cell line having a mutated APC gene that generates a truncated APC protein, leading to de-regulated accumulation of β-catenin.Cultured SW480 cells bearing a reporter construct were distributed at approximately 10,000 cells per well into 384- or 96-well multiwell plates. Compounds from a small molecule compound library were then added to the wells in half-log dilutions using a maximum concentration of three or ten micromolar. A series of control wells for each cell type received only buffer and compound solvent DMSO. Twenty-four hours after the addition of compound, reporter activity for luciferase was assayed, for example, by addition of the BrightGlo luminescence reagent (Promega) and the Victor3 plate reader (Perkin Elmer). Readings were normalized to DMSO only treated cells, and any activities above DMSO were considered activation. Compounds were considered activators if reporter activities were 2× fold or greater than DMSO. EC50 is the concentration at half maximal activation.
Affinity data for this assay
 

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