Proteostasis

Garcia, G, Santos, C Nunes do, Menezes, R, G. Garcia, C. Nunes do Santos, R. Menezes

Rune Matthiesen

The association between altered proteostasis and inflammatory responses has been increasingly recognized, therefore the identification and characterization of novel compounds with anti-inflammatory potential will certainly have a great impact in the therapeutics of protein-misfolding diseases such as degenerative disorders. Although cell-based screens are powerful approaches to identify potential therapeutic compounds, establishing robust inflammation models amenable to high-throughput screening remains a challenge. To bridge this gap, we have exploited the use of yeasts as a platform to identify lead compounds with anti-inflammatory properties. The yeast cell model described here relies on the high-degree homology between mammalian and yeast Ca(2+)/calcineurin pathways converging into the activation of NFAT and Crz1 orthologous proteins, respectively. It consists of a recombinant yeast strain encoding the lacZ gene under the control of Crz1-recongition elements to facilitate the identification of compounds interfering with Crz1 activation through the easy monitoring of β-galactosidase activity. Here, we describe in detail a protocol optimized for high-throughput screening of compounds with potential anti-inflammatory activity as well as a protocol to validate the positive hits using an alternative β-galactosidase substrate.