Advances in Parallel Screening of Drug Candidates

Paolo      Bergese; Marina      Cretich; Claudio      Oldani; Giulio      Oliviero; Gabriele      Di Carlo; Laura   E.   Depero; Marcella      Chiari

Abstract

In the hit to lead process, a drug candidate is selected from a set of potential leads by screening its binding with potential targets. This review focuses on the lead identification assays that employ a bio-chemical or bio-physical test to detect molecular recognition events between proteins and small molecules in a parallel format.These tests require either the lead or the target immobilization followed by incubation with the set of potential interaction partners and detection of a signal related to the target-ligand binding. In the first part of the review the different detection strategies amenable for drug screening are discussed. In the second part, a review of immobilization approaches for leads or targets, allowing the parallel screening of arrays of molecules, is presented.

Keywords: Lead, drug, detection, drug discovery, high throughput screening, small molecule microarrays

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