A bottom‐up approach identifies the antipsychotic and antineoplastic trifluoperazine and the ribose derivative deoxytubercidin as novel microglial phagocytosis inhibitors

[EN] Phagocytosis is an indispensable function of microglia, the brain professional phagocytes. Microglia is particularly efficient phagocytosing cells that undergo programmed cell death (apoptosis) in physiological conditions. However, mounting evidence suggests microglial phagocytosis dysfunction...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Rodriguez Iglesias, Noelia, Paris, Iñaki, Valero , Jorge, Cañas Zabala, Lorena, Carretero, Alejandro, Hatje, Klas, Zhang, Jitao David, Patsch, Christoph, Britschgi, Markus, Gutbier, Simon, Sierra, Amanda
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Salamanca (USAL)
Repositorio:GREDOS. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Salamanca
OAI Identifier:oai:gredos.usal.es:10366/167674
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167674
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Apoptosis
Deoxytubercidin
Hts
Microglia
Phagocytosis
Screening
Trifluoperazine
2490.01 Neurofisiología
3207.11 Neuropatología
2415 Biología Molecular
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] Phagocytosis is an indispensable function of microglia, the brain professional phagocytes. Microglia is particularly efficient phagocytosing cells that undergo programmed cell death (apoptosis) in physiological conditions. However, mounting evidence suggests microglial phagocytosis dysfunction in multiple brain disorders. These observations prompted us to search for phagocytosis modulators (enhancers or inhibitors) with therapeutic potential. We used a bottom-up strategy that consisted on the identification of phagocytosis modulators using phenotypic high throughput screenings (HTSs) in cell culture and validation in organotypic cultures and in vivo. We performed two complementary HTS campagnes: at Achucarro, we used primary cultures of mouse microglia and compounds of the Prestwick Chemical Library; at Roche, we used human iPSC derived macrophage-like cells and a proprietary chemo-genomic library with 2200 compounds with known mechanism-of-action. Next, we validated the more robust compounds using hippocampal organotypic cultures and identified two phagocytosis inhibitors: trifluoperazine, a dopaminergic and adrenergic antagonist used as an antipsychotic and antineoplastic; and deoxytubercidin, a ribose derivative. Finally, we tested whether these compounds were able to modulate phagocytosis of apoptotic newborn cells in the adult hippocampal neurogenic niche in vivo by administering them into the mouse hippocampus using osmotic minipumps. We confirmed that both trifluoperazine and deoxytubercidin have anti-phagocytic activity in vivo, and validated our bottom-up strategy to identify novel phagocytosis modulators. These results show that chemical libraries with annotated mechanism of action are an starting point for the pharmacological modulation of microglia in drug discovery projects aiming at the therapeutic manipulation of phagocytosis in brain diseases.