BellBrook Labs Awarded Patent on Transcreener® HTS Assay for Glycosyltransferases

It was announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded BellBrook Labs' Transcreener® technology its fourth patent (U.S. 7,847,066) for their innovative Glycosyltransferase assay. There are over 200 glycosyltransferases encoded in the human genome that use either UDP-, GDP- or CMP-activated sugars as the donor substrates. UDP-glycosyltransferases are the most abundant and they play a key role in metabolism of drugs.

In the Transcreener® UDP Assay, the detection of UDP produced in the enzyme reaction allows for a universal system to measure UDP-glycosyltransferase activity with any acceptor substrate. Because it allows homogenous, mix-and-read detection, the Transcreener® HTS Assay platform offers significant advantages over other assay methods that require separation steps. In combination with existing Transcreener® assays for GDP and CMP, the newly patented technology will accelerate the discovery of improved drugs targeting glycosylation events in diseases, such as cancer, type II diabetes and neurodegeneration.