Primary Screen

| Screening

Anti-Infectives

Aquapharm^® screens its microbial extracts for anti-infective activity against clinically relevant pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter, Klebsiella pneumoniae, MRSA, E. coli and Candida albicans. Simple disk diffusion based assays quickly determine an extracts spectrum of antimicrobial activity and provides an indication of crude MIC against clinically relevant isolates.

Anti-inflammatory

In inflammation, extracts are assessed for activity using a NF-kB cell reporter assay coupled to cell toxicity in order to identify novel anti-inflammatory compounds. Compounds that show a good level of NF-kB suppression coupled to high cell viability are further assessed for kinase screening ( see secondary screen ).

Anti-Oxidants

They also screen for anti-oxidants using cell culture techniques looking at the effect of oxidants on markers of oxidation and assays based on the Anti-Oxidant Response Element (ARE) gene battery to look for compounds that are able to induce the protective mechanisms of glutathione within cells.

Once hits are identified under all three screens, HPLC activity guided fractionation is used to produce pure molecules for structure elucidation, which are then further evaluated against a panel of secondary assays.

Structure Elucidation

Aquapharm's chemistry program is designed to quickly prioritise active extracts through early activity and chemical profiling. Extracts, must pass a rigorous series of steps to proceed to isolation and structure elucidation. These steps include LC-MS assessment and NMR techniques to quickly understand the level of chemical diversity contained within batches of extracts and assess the novelty of compounds contained within these extracts.