INDIGO Blog

View our most recent posts to learn more about various types of receptors, cell-based assays, and their use in drug discovery and environmental testing applications. 

 

Characterizing PFAS Compounds Using Human Cell-Based Bioassays

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are no longer viewed as a small set of well-known legacy contaminants. They represent a large, structurally diverse chemical class that includes long- and short-chain compounds, replacement chemistries, precursors, degradation products, and complex environmental mixtures.For researchers characterizing PFAS compounds, the challenge is no longer simply determining whether a compound is…

Why AhR Testing Matters for Safer Crop Protection Products

Bringing a new crop protection product to market takes more than proving efficacy. Today’s agricultural innovators are under growing pressure to identify potential safety concerns earlier, generate stronger mechanistic data, and make smarter development decisions before costly downstream studies begin.That shift is changing how R&D teams think about screening. In addition to evaluating on-target performance,…

Mechanistic Toxicology Assays: How Cell-based Tools Reveal Mode of Action Insights

Understanding the mechanism of toxicity is essential across the chemical and biomedical sciences. Whether in drug discovery, safety assessment, or environmental evaluation, mechanistic insight provides the foundation for interpreting biological effects in a meaningful way. By defining how a chemical perturbs specific pathways, researchers can identify structure-activity relationships, compare responses across compound classes, and design…

Transrepression Assays in Drug Discovery and Mechanistic Pharmacology

Transrepression assays are specialized cell-based systems designed to measure functional suppression of gene expression mediated by nuclear receptors and transcription factors. While traditional reporter assays quantify transcriptional activation, transrepression assays are used to evaluate how a receptor or pathway reduces transcription factor-driven gene expression. These assays are especially relevant in autoimmune diseases, inflammation research, immunology,…

Using Bioassays to Assess Toxicity in Complex Environmental Samples

Environmental monitoring has long relied on chemical analysis to identify contaminants and assess risk. That remains essential, but chemical data alone does not always show how real-world samples behave biologically. Surface water, groundwater, wastewater, and sediments often contain complex mixtures of known and unknown substances, making it difficult to determine which components are driving toxicological…