A sandwiched microarray platform for benchtop cell-based high throughput screening

The emergence of combinatorial chemistries and the increased discovery of natural compounds have led to the production of expansive libraries of drug candidates and vast numbers of compounds with potentially interesting biological activities. Despite broad interest in high throughput screening (HTS) across varied fields of biological research, there has not been an increase in accessible HTS technologies. Here, we present a simple microarray sandwich system suitable for screening chemical libraries in cell-based assays at the benchtop. The microarray platform delivers chemical compounds to isolated cell cultures by ‘sandwiching’ chemical-laden arrayed posts with cell-seeded microwells. In this way, an array of sealed cell-based assays was generated without cross-contamination between neighbouring assays. After chemical exposure, cell viability was analyzed by fluorescence detection of cell viability assays on a per microwell basis using a standard microarray scanner. We demonstrate the efficacy of the system by generating four hits from toxicology screens towards MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. Three of the hits were identified in a combinatorial screen of a library of natural compounds in combination with verapamil, a P-glycoprotein inhibitor. A fourth hit, 9-methoxy-camptothecin, was identified by screening the natural compound library in the absence of verapamil. The method developed here miniaturizes existing HTS systems and enables the screening of a wide array of individual or combinatorial libraries in a reproducible and scalable manner. We anticipate broad application of such a system as it is amenable to combinatorial drug screening in a simple, robust and portable platform.