Newsletter July 2024: Anti-aging cosmetics and zombie cells

Welcome to the July edition of the AI for Live Cell Insights Newsletter, bringing you the latest live cell analyses powering drug discovery and cosmetics development. Each month, we will explore a new application of AI-based cellular analysis for label-free live cell imaging, with publication highlights and news from Nanolive. This month, we are highlighting live cell imaging’s application in the development of senolytic cosmetics, and recent publications in the fields of oncology and microbiology. 

Zombie-killing senolytics

Senescent cells, also known as “zombie cells” cause aging of organs including the skin, and treatments which selectively kill these cells are called senolytics. As is the case with many cytotoxic treatments, the challenge is how to selectively kill senescent cells, without harming their healthy neighbors. Work published in Cosmetics & Toiletries by Leithe Budel, shows how his team at dsm-firmenich uses Nanolive’s imaging technology to assess their ingredients’ ability to selectively kill these zombie cells in an in vitro co-culture with healthy human dermal fibroblasts. 

As Nanolive can already image cells and detect the type of cell death without using any labels, a single fluorescent label can be used to differentiate subpopulations of cells in co-culture, and measurement of apoptosis and necrosis proceeds label-free, classified by the AI-powered LIVE Cytotoxicity Assay. 

Read the full publication, ‘Senolytics to stop zombie cells and the SASP aging cycle’. 

More AI applications for drug delivery and selectivity

Explore drug selectivity in co-culture models in more detail with Nanolive’s Drug Delivery Application Note. Here you will find an example measuring cytotoxic drug selectivity in a co-culture of cancer and non-cancer cells, and learn how the uptake and effect of different drug delivery methods like nanoparticles and mRNA therapies can be quantified using Nanolive’s AI-powered digital assays. 

The LIVE Cytotoxicity Assay used to quantify these processes first detects cell boundaries label-free, then measures the intracellular fluorescence for each cell, allowing cells to be divided into subpopulations by their fluorescence signature. Using AI, the assay then classifies cells as living, apoptotic, or necrotic using phenotypic markers, and the death rate for each subpopulation is automatically calculated. This approach allows more in-depth analysis of off-target drug effects at the in vitro stage.  

Read the application note here, with drug delivery case studies from bit.bio (Cambridge, UK) and TRON (Mainz, Germany).

Detecting specific cell death in different cell lines in co-culture. Two views of the same capture; refractive index imaging with fluorescent (Cy5) overlay (left), and the living (green), apoptotic (pink), and necrotic (dark blue) overlay, with the boundaries of fluorescent cells highlighted in yellow (center). Dead cells (%) plotted over time for the fluorescent cancer cell subpopulation, and the non-fluorescent, non-cancer cell population (right).

Upcoming events

High-content Label-free Imaging: Spotlight on Applications for Live Phenotypic Analysis

20th August

In this webinar hosted by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), discover the unique data gained from studying cell and organelle dynamics live and label-free. Holotomography is an innovative imaging technique which combines a rotating light source and the intrinsic refractive properties of cellular structures to produce crystal-clear, high resolution (200 nm) images of cells and their organelles, without labels or damage. Nanolive will showcase how such rich image data can be captured and processed automatically with AI-powered analysis to study cell death, T cell response, metabolism, and phenotypic responses. Then, we will take a deep-dive into case studies for a wide range of cell types and processes, from T cell killing, to mitochondrial networks, and phagocytosis. Come and see cells as you’ve never seen them before!

This event is open to members and non-members of ASCB.

Sign up here.

Latest publication highlights with Nanolive imaging:

• Mitochondria and metabolism: Licini, C. et al. (2024) ‘ER-mitochondria association negatively affects wound healing by regulating NLRP3 activation’, Cell Death and Disease, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41419-024-06765-9 
• Drug delivery: Chou, S.-J. et al. (2024) ‘Ophthalmic Tethered Gold Yarnball-Mediated Retained Drug Delivery for Eye Fundus Disease Treatment’, Small Science, https://doi.org/10.1002/smsc.202400095 

Gold Yarnball-mediated drug delivery. Chou, S.-J. et al. (2024)

• Oncology: Ha, C. et al. (2024) ‘Humanin activates integrin αV–TGFβ axis and leads to glioblastoma progression’, Cell Death and Disease,  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41419-024-06790-8 
• Neuroscience: Zhang, C. et al. (2024) ‘Therapeutic efficacy of a synthetic brain-targeted H2S donor cross-linked nanomicells in ASD rats via aerobic glycolysis’, Research Square, https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4439170/v1 
• Oncology: Berthenet, K. et al. (2024) ‘Atypical contribution of caspase-3 to melanoma cancer cell motility by regulation of coronin 1B activity’, bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.27.601010  

Find over 250 publications featuring Nanolive imaging here.

Online demo

It’s not too late to catch our online demo of the Nanolive imaging platform and software. You can watch on-demand here. 

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