Cell Screen SA - Flinders University

Cell Screen SA (CeSSA) is a professional research facility dedicated to High Throughput Screening (HTS) focused on supporting researchers and industry on biomedical innovations and discovery.

CeSSA was established in 2016 through a joint ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) application across the South Australian universities. CeSSA is a Therapeutic Innovation Australia approved Accelerator Pipeline facility (TIA capabilities), enabling support for therapeutic discovery projects.

Located in the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer (FCIC) and under the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute (FHMRI), Flinders University, CeSSA is a fee-for-service facility run by our team of experienced staff. Equipped with a unique set of instruments integrated by a robot arm in an automated platform, the facility provides HTS of compounds or RNAi on cell-culture or enzymatic-based models of disease. We work with academia and industry to run screening projects with established assays using either a plate reader (Ensight) or high content imaging (Operetta) endpoint.

Cell Screen SA staff and associated researchers also support grant applications with project plans, support letters, budgets, and trial experiments.

Our services

Analysis Capabilities

Equipment

Projects & publications

Libraries

Contact

OUR SERVICES

Our main services are focused on HTS projects and include:

RNAi and compound library screening.
Custom library screening.
Assay development.
Advise on screen design and development.
Access to our in-house libraries

Download CeSSA workflow

In addition, we also provide:

High content image analysis
Large data analysis
User/self-service access to some of our unique instruments
Help for automated solutions for other methods used in laboratory research, such as enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA).

OUR EQUIPMENT

Equipment	Description	Require training	Supervised use
Ensight	Multimode plate reader	YES	YES
Operetta	High content screening microscope	YES	YES
BOLT/VOLTA	High speed screening platform	YES	YES
LI-180	Spectral light meter	YES	NO
LP-10	Light meter	YES	NO
FlexDrop iQ	Non contact plate dispenser	YES	NO
Biotek MicroFill	Plate dispenser	YES	NO
Olympus R1	Cell counter	YES	NO
JANUS	Liquid handler	N/A	N/A
Biotek EL406	Plate washer and dispenser	N/A	N/A
Explorer Plate::Work	Robotic arm	N/A	N/A
LPX110	Plate hotel	N/A	N/A
Storex IC	Cell culture and plate incubator	N/A	N/A

Ensight

Multimode plate reader for absorbance, fluorescence, luminescence, time-resolved fluorescence and, uniquely, AlphaLISA® assay measurement.

Ensight User Manual

Operetta

High-content imaging system for high-throughput imaging and image analysis. Brightfield, fluorescence, confocal and non-confocal microscope.

Operetta User Manual

Janus

Liquid handler for complex pipetting procedures. Range from nano- to microliters. 8-tip Varispan™ for multi-tipped processing from tubes to vials to plates. 96- and 384-tip Modular Dispense Technology (MDT) dispense arms for liquid handling on 96 and 384 well plates.

Biotek

Plate aspiration and dispensing. Fast and accurate dispenser for variable volume dispensing of liquid through columns or rows.

Cell:Explorer(plate::handler)

Robotic arm for movement of plates between all instruments allowing automated workflows for high-throughput screening applications or time-course imaging

FlexDrop iQ Non-contact Dispenser

Non-contact dispenser for plate-based qPCR setup and drug dispensing. Range from nano- to microlitre volumes of almost any liquid into 96, 384, or 1536 well plates with a dead volume of 1 μL.

Bolt/Volta

Sub-millisecond temporal resolution plate reader for detection of transient cellular processes, in particular ion channel and receptor activity. Australia’s only device currently on loan to Cell Screen SA.

Download Volta case study

Light meters

Advanced devices to characterise light sources, such as Licor Li-180 (spectral and power information) and Sanwa LP-10 (power information).

Download LP-10 Manual

Download Li-180 Manual

LIBRARIES

External Libraries

We commonly source the screening libraries from external dedicated facilities.

Compound screening: Compound Australia samples from several libraries in assay-ready formats in a single point, multi-point and cherrypicked formats.
RNAi screening: Dharmacon provide a wide range of genome screening tools.

In-house Libraries

Dharmacon siGENOME siRNA libraries (SMARTpool):
- Human Protein Kinases
- Human Deubiquitinating Enzymes
- Human Proteases
- Human Cell Cycle Regulation
Sigma-RBI Library of Pharmacologically Active Compounds LOPAC1280
ORFeome collection library of all human transcription factors
ORFeome collection library of all human kinases
Human GPCR library (PRESTO-TANGO, Roth laboratory)
Human Kinase library (CCSB-Broad Human Kinase ORF Collection, Hahn/Root Labs)

The use of our in-house libraries could be subject to conditions, please contact us for details and availability.

ANALYSIS CAPABILITIES

Image analysis

Fee-for-service:

Our on-request service includes imaging of 96 and 384 well plates and/or image analysis tailored to your needs and includes a full data report and data analysis when required.

Self-service:

We host a web-based Columbus server connected to our high content automated microscope (Operetta) which can be remotely accessed by users for self-service image handling and analysis.

User based standalone workstation with Harmony and Acapella software for high content image analysis (see Operetta user manual for step-by step use of Harmony).

Assistance for importing and analysing images captured by other instruments, including Cytation5 (free service currently on test).

Data analysis

We can provide in depth and detailed data analysis and visualization using a dedicated TIBCO Spotfire Desktop (10.8.0.7) software coupled to Python scripting, capable of handling large data sets and several data formats. The results are provided with on-demand visualizations and publication quality report.

PROJECTS & PUBLICATIONS

Previous projects

We have completed several projects in collaboration with the University of South Australia, Adelaide University, Flinders University, National Centre for Translational Science (NIH, USA) and other organisations, including industry partners.

YEAR	PROJECT
2017	Image based HTS screening for compounds with inhibition effect on Zika virus (ZIKV) infection. Immune fluorescence Image base quantifying cells infected with ZIKV and the effect of over 3000 different compounds. Synthetic lethal screen of (Dharmacon) microRNA library on metformin treated colorectal cancer cells.
2018	Adjuvant compound screening for endocrine therapy on estrogen receptor positive and negative breast cancer cells. Effect of DNA demethylation. Testing ~300 compounds in 8 cells lines HTS screening for compounds with cytotoxic effect on squamous carcinoma cells. The screen included 2560 FDA approved compounds, 347 custom compound library and 181 compounds from SelleckChem epigenetic library. HTS screening for compounds with cytotoxic effect on human colon cancer cells and effect the effect of metformin cotreatment. Included ~ 3000 compounds and 2 metformin treatment conditions. International HTS Ring project in collaboration with the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NIH, USA) aimed to assess the reliability and quality of screening facilities around the world and standardise HTS practices. Enzymatic based screening testing enzyme inhibition activity of ~2000 compounds in 8-point dose response on the luciferase enzymes from Photinus pyralis and Renilla mulleri.
2019	Dose response HTS for compounds with cytotoxic activity on estrogen receptor positive and negative breast cancer cells. Testing ~100 compounds in 6 cells lines. HTS to identify host vesicular trafficking proteins that are essential for NS1 secretion, following infection with DENV expressing a NS1-NLuciferase chimeric protein on Firefly Luciferase transfected Huh7.5 cells. This screening based on NanoDLR technology and used reverse transfection with siRNA (over 600) to knockdown relevant proteins. HTS to identify compounds with cytotoxic activity on human kidney cells. Included over 1500 compounds. ELISA based HTS to identify active self-DNA sequences triggering the interferon alpha (IFNa) production following recognition by TLR9 on PBMC in a model of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. This screening tested 138 double-stranded DNA oligodeoxynucleotides in 6 replicas on PBMC from 8 different donors. HTS to identify compounds with cytotoxic activity on two cell lines of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B cells). Included over 384 compounds.
2020	HTS aimed to identify compounds disrupting the dimerization of NanoLuciferace Longbit-NS1 and SmallBit-NS1 DENV chimeric proteins using the Promega’s NanoBit protein-protein interaction technology. Over 3600 compounds representative of 1225 different scaffolds. HTS to identify compounds binding to DENV NS1-NanoLuc chimeric protein using a modified thermal-shift assay (NaLTSA). This screen tested 129 compounds from Epichem library for the capacity to bind and stabilise NS1 against degradation/unfolding induced by thermal treatment.
2022	High content image HTS to identify scaffolds and compound affecting Dengue virus NS1 protein transport and viral infection using chimeric proteins and modified virus. This screen included over 3000 different compound and 1275 structural scaffolds. Secondary screen is in progress.

Publications

Identification of Estrogen Receptor Modulators as Inhibitors of Flavivirus Infection. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2020 Jul 22;64(8). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32482672/

Zika Virus Infection of Human Iris Pigment Epithelial Cells. Front Immunol. 2021 Apr 22;12:644153. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.644153. eCollection 2021. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33968035/

A functional screen with metformin identifies microRNAs that regulate metabolism in colorectal cancer cells. Sci Rep. 2022; 12(1):2889. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35190587/

CONTACT US

While some equipment is only operated by our experienced staff, CeSSA now also has user-friendly equipment on request for immediate use by students and researchers, alike.

Please contact the team at Cell Screen SA about research support, equipment availability, bookings and fees.

Our facility is located at Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA

cellscreensa@flinders.edu.au