Development of resazurin-based assay in 384-well format for high throughput whole cell screening of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense strain STIB 900 for the identification of potential anti-trypanosomal agents

To accelerate the discovery of novel leads for the treatment of Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), it is necessary to have a simple, robust and cost-effective assay to identify positive hits by high throughput whole cell screening. Most of the fluorescence assay was made in black plate however in this study the HTS assay developed in 384-well format using clear plate and black plate, for comparison. The HTS assay developed is simple, sensitive, reliable and reproducible in both types of plates. Assay robustness and reproducibility were determined under the optimized conditions in 384-well plate was well tolerated in the HTS assay, including percentage of coefficient of variation (% CV) of 4.68% and 4.74% in clear and black 384-well plate, signal-to-background ratio (S/B) of 12.75 in clear 384-well plate and 12.07 in black 384-well plate, Z' factor of 0.79 and 0.82 in clear 384-well plate and black 384-well plate, respectively and final concentration of 0.30% dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) in both types of plate. Drug sensitivity was found to be comparable to the reported anti-trypanosomal assay in 96-well format. The reproducibility and sensitivity of this assay make it compliant to automated liquid handler use in HTS applications.