Analysis of purified tubulin in high concentration of glutamate for application in high throughput screening for microtubule-stabilizing agents.

High-throughput screening (HTS) is a powerful approach for the discovery of potential and effective drugs from a number of candidates. The dynamics of tubulin assembly and disassembly in vitro are an important target for the screening of anti-tumor agents. However, previously described methods are not amenable for HTS. In this paper, we compared preparation methods of tubulin and suggest a combination method, i.e., one cycle of assembly and disassembly following ion-exchange chromatography using high concentrations of glutamate to increase the recovery of tubulin with high purity. The resultant highly purified microtubule-associated proteins-free tubulin in high glutamate solution was directly employed in tubulin polymerization assays. Our results indicate that the system is feasible and practicable as a model for HTS for microtubule-stabilizing agents.