LABEL-FREE MONITORING OF CELL SIGNALLING PROCESSES THROUGH AFM-BASED FORCE MEASUREMENTS - Life at the Nanoscale: Atomic Force Microscopy of Live Cells - page 347

Chapter 17
LABELFREE MONITORING OF CELL
SIGNALLING PROCESSES THROUGH
AFMBASED FORCE MEASUREMENTS
Charles M. Cuerrier, Elie Simard, Charles-Antoine Lamontagne,
Julie Boucher, Yannick Miron and Michel Grandbois
Département de Pharmacologie, Université de Sherbrooke,
Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, J1H5N4
[e-mail]
17.1 LABELFREE MONITORING OF CELL SIGNALLING
PROCESSES
Continued success in drug discovery largely relies on the development
and evolution of assay technologies capable of accurate representation of
cellular behaviour in response to speciic stimulations. The development
of such technologies is vital to the drug discovery process as it guides the
selection of promising compounds as well as the early abandonment of
potential failing drug candidates. Compared with the data obtained using
cell-free assays, direct monitoring of drug-modulated signalling in live cell
systems offers high content information, in conditions designed to closely
resemble a physiological environment. These beneits have driven the
use of whole cell systems in drugs screening and fundamental biomedical
research. In cell-based assays, compounds are either screened on genetically
modiied cells expressing an exogenous receptor or on selected primary
cells expressing the target of interest. In this context, a compound can
simultaneously behave as an agonist or antagonist depending on which
intracellular signalling pathway is monitored. Therefore, a lack of eficacy