High-throughput screening for genes that prevent excess DNA replication in human cells and for molecules that inhibit them

High-throughput screening (HTS) provides a rapid and comprehensive approach to identifying compounds that target specific biological processes as well as genes that are essential to those processes. Here we describe a HTS assay for small molecules that induce either DNA re-replication or endoreduplication (i.e. excess DNA replication) selectively in cells derived from human cancers. Such molecules will be useful not only to investigate cell division and differentiation, but they may provide a novel approach to cancer chemotherapy. Since induction of DNA re-replication results in apoptosis, compounds that selectively induce DNA re-replication in cancer cells without doing so in normal cells could kill cancers in vivo without preventing normal cell proliferation. Furthermore, the same HTS assay can be adapted to screen siRNA molecules to identify genes whose products restrict genome duplication to once per cell division. Some of these genes might regulate the formation of terminally differentiated polyploid cells during normal human development, whereas others will prevent DNA re-replication during each cell division. Based on previous studies, we anticipate that one or more of the latter genes will prove to be essential for proliferation of cancer cells but not for normal cells, since many cancer cells are deficient in mechanisms that maintain genome stability.     

Integrating 'omic' information: a bridge between genomics and systems biology

The availability of genome sequences for several organisms, including humans, and the resulting first-approximation lists of genes, have allowed a transition from molecular biology to 'modular biology'. In modular biology, biological processes of interest, or modules, are studied as complex systems of functionally interacting macromolecules. Functional genomic and proteomic ('omic') approaches can be helpful to accelerate the identification of the genes and gene products involved in particular modules, and to describe the functional relationships between them. However, the data emerging from individual omic approaches should be viewed with caution because of the occurrence of false-negative and false-positive results and because single annotations are not sufficient for an understanding of gene function. To increase the reliability of gene function annotation, multiple independent datasets need to be integrated. Here, we review the recent development of strategies for such integration and we argue that these will be important for a systems approach to modular biology.     

Sweating the small stuff: microRNA discovery in plants

The class of small RNAs known as microRNAs (miRNAs) has a demonstrated role in the negative regulation of gene expression in both plants and animals. These small molecules have been shown to play a critical role in a wide range of developmental and physiological pathways. Although hundreds of different miRNAs have now been identified using cloning and computational approaches, characterization of their targets and biological roles has been more limited. New sequencing technologies promise to accelerate the sequencing of small RNAs and additional genetic and genomic strategies are being applied to assess their regulatory function on RNA targets. These technologies will enable the identification of large numbers of small RNAs from diverse species, and comparative genomics approaches based on these data are likely to identify additional miRNAs. Combined with bioinformatics and experimental approaches to separate miRNAs from short-interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the pace of miRNA discovery is likely to accelerate, leading to an improved understanding of miRNA function and biological significance.     

Toxicology and genetic toxicology in the new era of "toxicogenomics": impact of "-omics" technologies.

The unprecedented advances in molecular biology during the last two decades have resulted in a dramatic increase in knowledge about gene structure and function, an immense database of genetic sequence information, and an impressive set of efficient new technologies for monitoring genetic sequences, genetic variation, and global functional gene expression. These advances have led to a new sub-discipline of toxicology: "toxicogenomics". We define toxicogenomics as "the study of the relationship between the structure and activity of the genome (the cellular complement of genes) and the adverse biological effects of exogenous agents". This broad definition encompasses most of the variations in the current usage of this term, and in its broadest sense includes studies of the cellular products controlled by the genome (messenger RNAs, proteins, metabolites, etc.). The new "global" methods of measuring families of cellular molecules, such as RNA, proteins, and intermediary metabolites have been termed "-omic" technologies, based on their ability to characterize all, or most, members of a family of molecules in a single analysis. With these new tools, we can now obtain complete assessments of the functional activity of biochemical pathways, and of the structural genetic (sequence) differences among individuals and species, that were previously unattainable. These powerful new methods of high-throughput and multi-endpoint analysis include gene expression arrays that will soon permit the simultaneous measurement of the expression of all human genes on a single "chip". Likewise, there are powerful new methods for protein analysis (proteomics: the study of the complement of proteins in the cell) and for analysis of cellular small molecules (metabonomics: the study of the cellular metabolites formed and degraded under genetic control). This will likely be extended in the near future to other important classes of biomolecules such as lipids, carbohydrates, etc. These assays provide a general capability for global assessment of many classes of cellular molecules, providing new approaches to assessing functional cellular alterations. These new methods have already facilitated significant advances in our understanding of the molecular responses to cell and tissue damage, and of perturbations in functional cellular systems.As a result of this rapidly changing scientific environment, regulatory and industrial toxicology practice is poised to undergo dramatic change during the next decade. These advances present exciting opportunities for improved methods of identifying and evaluating potential human and environmental toxicants, and of monitoring the effects of exposures to these toxicants. These advances also present distinct challenges. For example, the significance of specific changes and the performance characteristics of new methods must be fully understood to avoid misinterpretation of data that could lead to inappropriate conclusions about the toxicity of a chemical or a mechanism of action. We discuss the likely impact of these advances on the fields of general and genetic toxicology, and risk assessment. We anticipate that these new technologies will (1) lead to new families of biomarkers that permit characterization and efficient monitoring of cellular perturbations, (2) provide an increased understanding of the influence of genetic variation on toxicological outcomes, and (3) allow definition of environmental causes of genetic alterations and their relationship to human disease. The broad application of these new approaches will likely erase the current distinctions among the fields of toxicology, pathology, genetic toxicology, and molecular genetics. Instead, a new integrated approach will likely emerge that involves a comprehensive understanding of genetic control of cellular functions, and of cellular responses to alterations in normal molecular structure and function.     

Genomics, systems biology and drug development for infectious diseases

Although a variety of drugs are available for many infectious diseases that predominantly affect the developing world reasons remain for continuing to search for new chemotherapeutics. First, the development of microbial resistance has made some of the most effective and inexpensive drug regimes unreliable and dangerous to use on severely ill patients. Second, many existing antimicrobial drugs show toxicity or are too expensive for countries where the per capita income is in the order of hundreds of dollars per year. In recognition of this, new publicly and privately financed drug discovery efforts have been established to identify and develop new therapies for diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS. This in turn, has intensified the need for tools to facilitate drug identification for those microbes whose molecular biology is poorly understood, or which are difficult to grow in the laboratory. While much has been written about how functional genomics can be used to find novel protein targets for chemotherapeutics this review will concentrate on how genome-wide, systems biology approaches may be used following whole organism, cell-based screening to understand the mechanism of drug action or to identify biological targets of small molecules. Here we focus on protozoan parasites, however, many of the approaches can be applied to pathogenic bacteria or parasitic helminths, insects or disease-causing fungi.     

Decoding cis-regulatory systems in ascidians

Ascidians, or sea squirts, are lower chordates, and share basic gene repertoires and many characteristics, both developmental and physiological, with vertebrates. Therefore, decoding cis-regulatory systems in ascidians will contribute toward elucidating the genetic regulatory systems underlying the developmental and physiological processes of vertebrates. cis-Regulatory DNAs can also be used for tissue-specific genetic manipulation, a powerful tool for studying ascidian development and physiology. Because the ascidian genome is compact compared with vertebrate genomes, both intergenic regions and introns are relatively small in ascidians. Short upstream intergenic regions contain a complete set of cis-regulatory elements for spatially regulated expression of a majority of ascidian genes. These features of the ascidian genome are a great advantage in identifying cis-regulatory sequences and in analyzing their functions. Function of cis-regulatory DNAs has been analyzed for a number of tissue-specific and developmentally regulated genes of ascidians by introducing promoter-reporter fusion constructs into ascidian embryos. The availability of the whole genome sequences of the two Ciona species, Ciona intestinalis and Ciona savignyi, facilitates comparative genomics approaches to identify cis-regulatory DNAs. Recent studies demonstrate that computational methods can help identify cis-regulatory elements in the ascidian genome. This review presents a comprehensive list of ascidian genes whose cis-regulatory regions have been subjected to functional analysis, and highlights the recent advances in bioinformatics and comparative genomics approaches to cis-regulatory systems in ascidians.     

Linking genotypes to phenotypes and fitness: how mechanistic biology can inform molecular ecology

The accessibility of new genomic resources, high‐throughput molecular technologies and analytical approaches such as genome scans have made finding genes contributing to fitness variation in natural populations an increasingly feasible task. Once candidate genes are identified, we argue that it is necessary to take a mechanistic approach and work up through the levels of biological organization to fully understand the impacts of genetic variation at these candidate genes. We demonstrate how this approach provides testable hypotheses about the causal links among levels of biological organization, and assists in designing relevant experiments to test the effects of genetic variation on phenotype, whole‐organism performance capabilities and fitness. We review some of the research programs that have incorporated mechanistic approaches when examining naturally occurring genetic and phenotypic variation and use these examples to highlight the value of developing a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between genotype and fitness. We give suggestions to guide future research aimed at uncovering and understanding the genetic basis of adaptation and argue that further integration of mechanistic approaches will help molecular ecologists better understand the evolution of natural populations.     

Chemical biology approaches in plant stress research

In addition to their importance as essential agrochemicals and life-saving drugs, small molecules serve as powerful research tools to address questions at all levels of biological complexity from protein function to plant biotic interactions. In certain contexts, chemical tools are complementary or even preferred to genetic analysis, since not all experimental systems are amenable for genetic dissection. For example, mutants impaired in oxygen sensing cannot easily be recovered. Pharmacological and chemical genetics approaches have come to the rescue of biologists in unraveling such genetically intractable systems. In this review, I have discussed my own efforts to analyze oxygen deprivation signaling in plants to illustrate the validity of small molecular approaches in elucidating an essential pathway such as oxygen sensing. Chemical biology is also a potent approach to tease out genetically redundant biological processes. The recent breakthrough in identifying the elusive abscisic acid receptors has clearly demonstrated the power of chemical tools in dissecting redundant pathways and led to the blossoming of this area as a distinct discipline of plant biology research. I present a summary of this work and conclude the review with potential challenges in using chemical tools.     

Use of denaturing HPLC to map human and murine genes and to validate single-nucleotide polymorphisms

Linkage mapping has been extensively applied in the murine and human genomes. It remains a powerful approach to mapping genes and identifying genetic variants. As genome efforts identify large numbers of single-nucleotide polymorphisms, it will be critical to validate these polymorphisms and confirm their gene assignment and chromosomal location. The presence of pseudogenes can confuse such efforts. We have used denaturing HPLC to identify polymorphisms in human genes and to genotype individuals in selected CEPH pedigrees. The same approach has been applied to the mapping of murine genes in interspecies backcross animals. This strategy is rapid, accurate and superior in several respects to other technologies.     

DNA sequences amplified in cancer cells: an interface between tumor biology and human genome analysis.

There is growing evidence that amplification of specific genes is associated with tumor progression. While several proto-oncogenes are known to be activated by amplification, it is clear that not all the genes involved in DNA amplification in human tumors have been discovered. Our approach to the identification of such genes is based on the 'reverse genetics' methodology. Anonymous amplified DNA fragments are cloned by virtue of their amplification in a given tumor. These sequences are mapped in the normal genome and hence define a new genetic locus. The amplified domain is isolated by long-range cloning and analyzed along three lines of investigation: new genes are sought that can explain the biological significance of the amplification; the structure of the domain is studied in normal cells and in the amplification unit in the cancer cell; attempts are made to identify molecular probes of diagnostic value within the amplified domain. This application of genome technology to cancer biology is demonstrated in our study of a new genomic domain at chromosome 10q26 which is amplified specifically in human gastric carcinomas.     

Signaling protein networks as targets of new antineoplastic drugs

In-depth analysis of molecular regulatory networks in cancer holds the promise of improved knowledge of the pathophysiology of tumor cells so that it will become possible to design a detailed molecular tumor taxonomy. This knowledge will also offer new opportunities for the identification and validation of key molecular tumor targets to be exploited for novel therapeutic approaches. Some signaling proteins have already been identified as such, e.g. c-Myc, Cyclin D1, Bcl-XL, kinases and some nuclear receptors. This has led to the successful development of a few function-modulatory drugs (Glivec, SERM, Iressa), providing proof-of-principle of the validity of this approach. Further developments are likely to derive from "-omic" approaches, aimed at the understanding of signaling networks and of the mechanism of action of newfound lead molecules. High-throughput screening of small drug-like molecules from combinatorial chemical libraries or from microbial extracts will identify novel, "intelligent" drug candidates. An additional medicinal chemistry strategy (via 40-50 unit rosary-bead chains) has the potential to be much more effective than small molecules in interfering with protein-protein interactions. This may lead to considerably higher selectivity and effectiveness compared with historical approaches in drug discovery.     

Yeast "N"-hybrid systems for protein-protein and drug-protein interaction discovery

The majority of small molecule drugs act on protein targets to exert a therapeutic function. It has become apparent in recent years that many small molecule drugs act on more than one particular target and consequently, approaches which profile drugs to uncover their target binding spectrum have become increasingly important. Classical yeast two-hybrid systems have mainly been used to discover and characterize protein-protein interactions, but recent modifications and improvements have opened up new routes towards screening for small molecule-protein interactions. Such yeast "n"-hybrid systems hold great promise for the development of drugs which interfere with protein-protein interactions and for the discovery of drug-target interactions. In this review, we discuss several yeast two-hybrid based approaches with applications in drug discovery and describe a protocol for yeast three-hybrid screening of small molecules to identify their direct targets.     

Systems chemical biology

The increasing availability of data related to genes, proteins and their modulation by small molecules has provided a vast amount of biological information leading to the emergence of systems biology and the broad use of simulation tools for data analysis. However, there is a critical need to develop cheminformatics tools that can integrate chemical knowledge with these biological databases and simulation approaches, with the goal of creating systems chemical biology.     

Haploid embryonic stem cells: an ideal tool for mammalian genetic analyses

Identification of the function of all genes in the mammalian genome is critical in understanding basic mechanisms of biology. However, the diploidy of mammalian somatic cells has greatly hindered efforts to elucidate the gene function in numerous biological processes by mutagenesis-based genetic approaches. Recently, mouse haploid embryonic stem (haES) cells have been successfully isolated from parthenogenetic and androgenetic embryos, providing an ideal tool for genetic analyses. In these studies, mouse haES cells have already shown that they could be used in cell-based forward or reverse genetic screenings and in generating gene-targeting via homologous recombination. In particular, haES cells from androgenetic embryos can be employed as novel, renewable form of fertilization agent for yielding live-born mice via injection into oocytes, thus showing the possibility that genetic analysis can be extended from cellular level to organism level.     

Host-Directed Therapeutics for Tuberculosis: Can We Harness the Host?

SUMMARY

Treatment of tuberculosis (TB) remains challenging, with lengthy treatment durations and complex drug regimens that are toxic and difficult to administer. Similar to the vast majority of antibiotics, drugs for Mycobacterium tuberculosis are directed against microbial targets. Although more effective drugs that target the bacterium may lead to faster cure of patients, it is possible that a biological limit will be reached that can be overcome only by adopting a fundamentally new treatment approach. TB regimens might be improved by including agents that target host pathways. Recent work on host-pathogen interactions, host immunity, and host-directed interventions suggests that supplementing anti-TB therapy with host modulators may lead to shorter treatment times, a reduction in lung damage caused by the disease, and a lower risk of relapse or reinfection. We undertook this review to identify molecular pathways of the host that may be amenable to modulation by small molecules for the treatment of TB. Although several approaches to augmenting standard TB treatment have been proposed, only a few have been explored in detail or advanced to preclinical and clinical studies. Our review focuses on molecular targets and inhibitory small molecules that function within the macrophage or other myeloid cells, on host inflammatory pathways, or at the level of TB-induced lung pathology.     

Fluidic and microfluidic tools for quantitative systems biology

Understanding genes and their functions is a daunting task due to the level of complexity in biological organisms. For discovering how genotype and phenotype are linked to each other, it is essential to carry out systematic studies with maximum sensitivity and high-throughput. Recent developments in fluid-handling technologies, both at the macro and micro scale, are now allowing us to apply engineering approaches to achieve this goal. With these newly developed tools, it is now possible to identify genetic factors that are responsible for particular phenotypes, perturb and monitor cells at the single-cell level, evaluate cell-to-cell variability, detect very rare phenotypes, and construct faithful in vitro disease models.     

Smart chemistry tackling complex biology

The pathway of drug discovery from gene and therapeutic targets to breakthrough medicines provides an extraordinary adventure that often includes high risks, creative insights, relentless perserverance, goal-oriented focus, interdisciplinary teamwork and a bit of good luck. From synthetic small molecules to natural products, peptides, peptidomimetics, proteins (including antibodies) and nucleic acids (RNA or DNA), there exists a plethora of molecular diversity that has resulted in the development of potent, selective, effective and safe-acting drugs to treat numerous diseases. Yet, despite the numerous success cases in this drug discovery adventure, do we really know what we're doing? Granted, powerful enabling technologies have been established to identify, validate and decipher therapeutic targets, and we have the human genome blueprint and the ability to unravel the human proteome systematically into discrete functional components of complex biological processes. Yet, as exquisite and well-defined as such biological processes may become, do we really know how to chemically design breakthrough medicines? Is it a game of probability (i.e. how many attempts it may take to hit the proverbial ‘bullseye’)? Perhaps this has been case. However, there is such a thing as ‘smart chemistry’, and it has a genuine beauty of its own.