High-content screening for the discovery of pharmacological compounds: advantages, challenges and potential benefits of recent technological developments

Importance of the field. Screening compounds with cell-based assays and microscopy image-based analysis is an approach currently favored for drug discovery. Because of its high information yield, the strategy is called high-content screening (HCS). Areas covered in this review. This review covers the application of HCS in drug discovery and also in basic research of potential new pathways that can be targeted for treatment of pathophysiological diseases. HCS faces several challenges, however, including the extraction of pertinent information from the massive amount of data generated from images. Several proposed approaches to HCS data acquisition and analysis are reviewed. What the reader will gain: Different solutions from the fields of mathematics, bioinformatics and biotechnology are presented. Potential applications and limits of these recent technical developments are also discussed. Take home message: HCS is a multidisciplinary and multistep approach for understanding the effects of compounds on biological processes at the cellular level. Reliable results depend on the quality of the overall process and require strong interdisciplinary collaborations.