Tania García-Maceira

CCR6 is a chemokine receptor highly implicated in inflammatory diseases and could be a potential therapeutic target; however, no therapeutic agents targeting CCR6 have progressed into clinical evaluation. Development of a high-throughput screening assay for CCR6 should facilitate the identification of novel compounds against CCR6. To develop a cell-based assay, RBL-2H3 cells were transfected with plasmids encoding β-hexosaminidase and CCR6. Intracellular calcium mobilization of transfected cells was measured with a fluorescent substrate using the activity of released hexosaminidase as readout of the assay. This stable, transfected cell showed a specific signal to the background ratio of 19.1 with low variability of the signal along the time. The assay was validated and optimized for high-throughput screening. The cell-based calcium mobilization assay responded to the specific CCR6 ligand, CCL20, in a dose-dependent manner with an EC₅₀ value of 10.72 nM. Furthermore, the assay was deemed robust and reproducible with a Z’ factor of 0.63 and a signal window of 7.75. We have established a cell-based high-throughput calcium mobilization assay for CCR6 receptor. This assay monitors calcium mobilization, due to CCR6h activation by CCL20, using hexosaminidase activity as readout. This assay was proved to be robust, easy to automate and could be used as method for screening of CCR6 modulators.

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is routinely used to detect biomolecules related to several diseases facilitating diagnosis and monitoring of these, as well as the possibility of decreasing their mortality rate. Several methods have been carried out to improve the ELISA sensitivity through antibodies immobilization on the microtiter plates. Here, we have developed a strategy of antibodies immobilization to improve the ELISA sensitivity increasing the antibody density surface through the tetrazine (Tz)-trans-cyclooctene (TCO) reaction. For this, we prepared surfaces with tetrazine groups while the captured antibody was conjugated with TCO. The tetrazine surfaces were prepared in two different ways: (1) from aminated plates and (2) from Tz-BSA-coated plates. The surfaces were evaluated using two sandwich ELISA models, one of them using the low-affinity antibody anti-c-myc as a capture antibody to detect the c-myc-GST-IL8h recombinant protein, and the other one to detect the carcinoembryonic human protein (CEA). The sensitivity increased in both surfaces treated with tetrazine in comparison with the standard unmodified surface. The c-myc-GST-IL8h detection was around 10-fold more sensible on both tetrazine surfaces, while CEA ELISA detection increased 12-fold on surfaces coated with Tz-BSA. In conclusion, we show that it is possible to improve the ELISA sensitivity using this immobilization system, where capture antibodies bond covalently to surfaces.