| Assay Method Information | |
| | Determination of EC50 values using a Ca2+ mobilization in vitro assay on recombinant human mGlu4 expressed in HEK293 cells |
| Description: | A monoclonal HEK-293 cell line stably transfected with a cDNA encoding for the human mGlu4 receptor was generated; for the work with mGlu4 Positive Allosteric Modulators (PAMs), a cell line with low receptor expression levels and low constitutive receptor activity was selected to allow the differentiation of agonistic versus PAM activity. Cells were cultured according to standard protocols (Freshney, 2000) in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium with high glucose supplemented with 1 mM glutamine, 10% (vol/vol) heat-inactivated bovine calf serum, Penicillin/Streptomycin, 50 μg/ml hygromycin and 15 μg/ml blasticidin (all cell culture reagents and antibiotics from Invitrogen, Basel, Switzerland).About 24 hrs before an experiment, 5×104 cells/well were seeded in poly-D-lysine coated, black/clear-bottomed 96-well plates. The cells were loaded with 2.5 μM Fluo-4AM in loading buffer (1×HBSS, 20 mM HEPES) for 1 hr at 37° C. and washed five times with loading buffer. The cells were transferred into a Functional Drug Screening System 7000 (Hamamatsu, Paris, France), and 11 half logarithmic serial dilutions of test compound at 37° C. were added and the cells were incubated for 10-30 min. with on-line recording of fluorescence. Following this pre-incubation step, the agonist (2S)-2-amino-4-phosphonobutanoic acid (L-AP4) was added to the cells at a concentration corresponding to EC20 with on-line recording of fluorescence; in order to account for day-to-day variations in the responsiveness of cells, the EC20 of L-AP4 was determined immediately ahead of each experiment by recording of a full dose-response curve of L-AP4. Responses were measured as peak increase in fluorescence minus basal (i.e. fluorescence without addition of L-AP4), normalized to the maximal stimulatory effect obtained with saturating concentrations of L-AP4. Graphs were plotted with the % maximal stimulatory using XLfit, a curve fitting program that iteratively plots the data using Levenburg Marquardt algorithm. The single site competition analysis equation used was y=A+((B-A)/(1+((x/C)D))), where y is the % maximal stimulatory effect, A is the minimum y, B is the maximum y, C is the EC50, x is the log 10 of the concentration of the competing compound and D is the slope of the curve (the Hill Coefficient). From these curves the EC50 (drug concentration at which 50% of the maximal receptor activation was achieved), the Hill coefficient as well as the maximal response in % of the maximal stimulatory effect obtained with saturating concentrations of L-AP4 were calculated. |
| Affinity data for this assay | |
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