The discovery of novel antihelmintic molecules to combat the development and spread of schistosomiasis, a disease caused by several Schistosoma flatworm species, mobilizes significant research efforts worldwide. With a limited number of biochemical assays for measuring the viability of adult worms, the antischistosomicidal activity of molecules is usually evaluated by a microscopic observation of worm mobility and/or integrity upon drug exposure. Even if these phenotypical assays enable multiple parameters analysis, they are often conducted during several days and need to be associated with image-based analysis to minimized subjectivity. We describe here a self-purifying microfluidic system enabling the selection of healthy adult worms and the identification of molecules acting instantly on the parasite. The worms are assayed in a dynamic environment that eliminates unhealthy worms that cannot attach firmly to the chip walls prior to being exposed to the drug. The detachment of the worms is also used as second step readout for identifying active compounds. We have validated this new fluidic screening approach using the two major antihelmintic drugs, praziquantel and artemisinin. The reported dynamic system is simple to produce and to parallelize. Importantly, it enables a quick and sensitive detection of antischistosomal compounds in no more than one hour.
The discovery of novel antihelminthic molecules to combat the development and spread of schistosomiasis, a disease caused by several Schistosoma flatworm species, mobilizes significant research efforts worldwide. In the absence of reliable and practical biochemical assays for measuring the viability of adult worms, the antischistosomicidal activity of molecules is usually evaluated by a detailed microscopic observation of worm mobility and/or integrity upon drug exposure. These assays have the disadvantage of being inacurate, subjective, biased by the limited in vitro worm viability and difficult to integrate at high density. We describe here a self-purifiying microfluidic system enabling the selection of healthy adult worms and the identification of molecules acting on the parasite. The worms are assayed in a dynamic environment that eliminates unhealthy worms that cannot attach firmly to the chip walls prior to being exposed to the drug. The detachment of the worms is also used as second step readout for identifying active compounds. We have validated this new fluidic screening approach using the two major antihelmintic drugs, Praziquantel and Artemisinin. The reported dynamic system is simple to produce and to parallelize. Importantly, it enables a quick, sensitive and reliable detection of antischistosomal compounds in no more than one day. This system can potentially be modified in the future to better mimic the natural habitat of the parasite.
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