Discovery of Enhancers of the Secretion of Leukemia Inhibitory Factor for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis

We describe here the development of a phenotypic assay and screening of 1.7 million compounds to identify LIF enhancers using U87 MG cells. Five chemically tractable series of compounds and a few singletons were selected for further progression. Some of them were also active in a different LIF-expressing cell line and in primary rat astrocytes. Although further studies would be required to deconvolute the targets involved in LIF induction and to confirm activity of hits in more disease-relevant assays, our results have demonstrated the potential of the phenotypic approach to identify specific and chemically tractable small molecules that trigger the production of LIF in relevant cell lines.

Source: Journal of Biomolecular Screening - May 19, 2016 Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Vela, L., Caballero, I., Fang, L., Liu, Q., Ramon, F., Diez, E., de los Frailes, M. Tags: Original Research Source Type: research