BacMam-enabled LanthaScreen cellular assays for PI3K/Akt pathway compound profiling in disease-relevant cell backgrounds.

The authors recently reported the development and application of multiple LanthaScreen cellular assays to interrogate specific steps within the PI3K/Akt pathway. The importance of this signaling cascade in regulating fundamental aspects of cell growth and survival, as well as in the progression of cancer, underscores the need for portable cell-based assays for compound profiling in multiple disease-relevant cell backgrounds. To meet this need, the authors have now expanded their LanthaScreen assay platform across a variety of cell types using a gene delivery technology known as BacMam. Here, they have demonstrated the successful detection of Akt-dependent phosphorylation of PRAS40 at Thr246 in 10 different cell lines harboring mutations known to activate the PI3K/Akt pathway. In addition, they generated inhibitory profiles of 17 known pathway inhibitors in these same cells to validate the approach of using the BacMam-enabled LanthaScreen cellular assay format to rapidly profile compounds in disease-relevant cell types. Importantly, their results provide a broad illustration of how the genetic alterations that affect PI3K/Akt signaling can also influence the inhibitory profile of a given compound.