We routinely perform the service for our customers. We can define mechanisms of action for a given drug and determine whether that drug is a DNA binder or a DNA Intercalator.  These projects may involve us screening a single drug or a 100 unknowns.  From small to large numbers of tests, we have a moderate throughput system to meet your needs.  And, it’s affordable and rapid turn-around.  We provide expertise, materials, labor and consulting with a complete and thorough report.  Our expertise extends to human and bacterial topoisomerases and gyrase.  We guarantee you will get publication quality data.

TopoGEN scientists discovered and patented the ICE (for In vivo Complex of Enzyme) assay.  IF you have a topoisomerase active drug, you must test its efficacy in live cells.  We wrote the book on this method and can help you understand whether your drug will work in patients.  Moreover, ICE Assays are antibody-based, which means you can demonstrate specificity in the context of a living cell (Top1 or Top2a or Top2b).

We can also help with your immune-precipitation (IP) experiments or chromatin IP analyses.  Let us know your needs!  We have extensive experience with our Topo specific Abs.

We can help you define the mechanism of action in vitro using our kits or we can test your unknow agents for you!  Either way, you will get direct, hands on consulting on using our validated topoisomerase drugs as key controls for testing.

Since topo drug induce DNA damage, there has been much interest in how this damage is repaired.  TopoGEN has invested in making DNA repair reporting cell lines for the purpose of drug discovery.  More specifically, if you can both damage DNA by topo drugs and then inhibit the ability of the cell to recover by DNA repair (by Homologous Recombination or by Non-Homologous DNA End Joining), you may be able to effect greater tumor cell killing using a combination approach (a topo drug, plus a repair inhibitor).   We can help you interrogate the DNA repair pathways in animal cells.  Our DNA repair kits are highly tractable and all unprecedented insight into mechanisms to block repair and recovery. 

To document and validate the results. Again, we certify tractable results that will be internally controlled.

We tailor each contract to offer maximum flexibility and coordinate with you over the course of the project to ensure intellectual flow of ideas and results. We will advise you on the best course of action with all hits. You can select the level of detail for the project that best suits your needs.

In most if not all projects, there will be a need to re-examine, re-test or alter the course. How do we correct for work-load adjustments in the mid-stream? Our solution: we include on all projects, a small indirect “over-run fee” that will allow us to perform additional key experiments without asking for additional funds. This is an advantage for clients and ensures that our high standards of data quality will be maintained. For example, if additional testing regimens are required, we carry out the service automatically. Importantly, there is no guessing on the budget and you will not pay additional fees.

We are a team of topo experts. All projects include email and direct SKYPE support over the course of the project. Our scientific staff will discuss and suggest future prospects or experiments.

For complete flexibility and to ensure cost-effective contracts, we offer two levels of reporting. At a basic level, included in all contracts, we provide well-documented data (powerpoint, PDF or password protected cloud account). We draw conclusions, presented as bullets, on each slide and make a recommendation for further development and maturation of the project. For clients who wish to have a ‘manuscript’ style report, we offer fully referenced publication style reports. These reports are professionally prepared and are suitable for presentation to regulatory agencies. These publication style reports can be reviewed independently by third party opinion leaders in the field and the reviews appended to the final report.

The company has been actively engaged in contract drug testing since the 1990s and we have the experience to get results that will enable ‘go/no go’ decision making on drug development.

In most cases, the project will be completed over a period of several business days. We will clearly stipulate how long the project will take and we deliver on time.

We can test prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems with highly purified enzymes that are well-controlled reagents. We can provide additional documentation of purity and QC on all preparations. The following enzymes or tractable antibodies are currently in our inventory:

• Human DNA Topoisomerase I
• Human DNA Topoisomerase IIα
• Human DNA Topoisomerase IIβ (in vivo or ICE screens only, see next item below)

TopoGEN is a pioneer in testing agents that operate in the context of the cell. For eukaryotic systems, we can perform rigorous testing in tissue culture cells. We offer a variety of cell lines suitable for topoI, II and II, testing. For example, we can test your drug (either as CIC or IFP) in virtually any cell line of interest.

TopoGEN is unique in offering this service as part of our routine testing regimen. In all projects, we design our experiments to garner new information about your compound. For example, all gels are run in duplicate. One is a non-EB gel system, used to demonstrate unambiguous catalytic activity and the other gel is an EB containing gel to parse clearly the cleavage products. Since the reactions come from the same tube, we can be sure that the results are reproducible and accurate. Importantly, the non-EB gel system also reports whether the drug is a DNA intercalator, which may suggest genotoxicity in cells.