A major obstacle for the discovery of psychoactive drugs is the inability to predict how small molecules will alter complex behaviors. We report the development and application of a highthroughput, quantitative screen for drugs that alter the behavior of larval zebrafish. We found that the multi-dimensional nature of observed phenotypes enabled the hierarchical clustering of molecules according to shared behaviors. Behavioral profiling revealed conserved functions of psychotropic molecules and predicted the mechanisms of action of poorly characterized compounds. In addition, behavioral profiling implicated new factors such as ether-a-go-go-related gene (ERG) potassium channels and immunomodulators in the control of rest and locomotor activity. These results demonstrate the power of high-throughput behavioral profiling in zebrafish to discover and characterize psychotropic drugs and to dissect the pharmacology of complex behaviors.Most current drug discovery efforts focus on simple in vitro screening assays. Although such screens can be successful, they cannot recreate the complex network interactions of whole organisms. These limitations are particularly acute for psychotropic drugs because brain activity cannot be modeled in vitro (1,2 and supplemental text 1). Motivated by recent small molecule screens that probed zebrafish developmental processes (3-6), we developed a whole organism, high-throughput screen for small molecules that alter larval zebrafish locomotor behavior. We used an automated rest/wake behavioral assay (7,8) to monitor the activity of #to whom correspondence should be addressed,

Summary The combined activity of three transcription factors can reprogram adult cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. However, the transgenic methods used to deliver reprogramming factors have raised concerns regarding the future utility of the resulting stem cells. These uncertainties could be overcome if each transgenic factor were replaced with a small molecule that either directly activated its expression from the somatic genome or in some way compensated for its activity. To this end, we have used high-content chemical screening to identify small molecules that can replace Sox2 in reprogramming. We show that one of these molecules functions in reprogramming by inhibiting Tgf-β signaling in a stable and trapped intermediate cell type that forms during the process. We find that this inhibition promotes the completion of reprogramming through induction of the transcription factor Nanog.

Stepwise differentiation from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to functional insulin-secreting beta cells will identify key steps in beta-cell development and may yet prove useful for transplantation therapy for diabetics. An essential step in this schema is the generation of pancreatic progenitors--cells that express Pdx1 and produce all the cell types of the pancreas. High-content chemical screening identified a small molecule, (-)-indolactam V, that induces differentiation of a substantial number of Pdx1-expressing cells from human ESCs. The Pdx1-expressing cells express other pancreatic markers and contribute to endocrine, exocrine and duct cells, in vitro and in vivo. Further analyses showed that (-)-indolactam V works specifically at one stage of pancreatic development, inducing pancreatic progenitors from definitive endoderm. This study describes a chemical screening platform to investigate human ESC differentiation and demonstrates the generation of a cell population that is a key milepost on the path to making beta cells.