Student Author(s)

Ma. Reina D. Improgo

Academic Program

Neuroscience

UMMS Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry; Tapper Lab

Publication Date

2011-09-08

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Neoplasms | Neuroscience and Neurobiology | Psychiatry

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Frontline treatment of small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) relies heavily on chemotherapeutic agents and radiation therapy. Though SCLC patients respond well to initial cycles of chemotherapy, they eventually develop resistance. Identification of novel therapies against SCLC is therefore imperative.

METHODS AND FINDINGS: We have designed a bioluminescence-based cell viability assay for high-throughput screening of anti-SCLC agents. The assay was first validated via standard pharmacological agents and RNA interference using two human SCLC cell lines. We then utilized the assay in a high-throughput screen using the LOPAC(1280) compound library. The screening identified several drugs that target classic cancer signaling pathways as well as neuroendocrine markers in SCLC. In particular, perturbation of dopaminergic and serotonergic signaling inhibits SCLC cell viability.

CONCLUSIONS: The convergence of our pharmacological data with key SCLC pathway components reiterates the importance of neurotransmitter signaling in SCLC etiology and points to possible leads for drug development.

Rights and Permissions

Copyright: © 2011 Improgo et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

DOI of Published Version

10.1371/journal.pone.0024132

Source

PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e24132. Epub 2011 Sep 8. Link to article on publisher's site

Journal/Book/Conference Title

PloS one

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed

PubMed ID

21931655

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