Detection of Total UDP-Glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) Activity in Melanoma Cells

The UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) are integrally involved in the clearance of a wide range of drugs used to combat human diseases. UGT expression levels and activity can be induced by drug addition to cells and has been proposed as a potential intratumoral drug resistance mechanism. Traditional methods of assaying UGT activity are drug-centric and require HPLCs with multiple detectors (dependent on individual drug). Here, we describe a generalized method to detect total UGT activity (intrinsic or induced) via the UGT-Glo assay which utilizes a general UGT substrate with luminescence as the readout eliminating the need for multiple HPLC detectors to detect total UGT activity in a given sample. The method detailed here can be applied for any UGT containing sample, allowing for the efficient detection of total UGT activity to be the functional endpoint using a plate reader. In this manner, global changes in UGT activity can be monitored in response to a wide variety of stimuli.