The Importance of Automated Sample Management Systems in Realizing the Potential of Large Compound Libraries in Drug Discovery

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 203-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willie Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Human Error ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Sample Storage ◽  
Biological Targets ◽  
Storage And Retrieval ◽  
Compound Libraries ◽  
Sample Management ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Large Compound

Biomolecular screening is now enabled at a far greater scale than ever before due to the explosion of available libraries and targets. By the early '90s, however, it was becoming clear that the potential number of tests which could be done (theoretically the product of available test compounds multiplied by identified biological targets) was, in practice, being severely limited by the logistics of handling and preparing samples at rates exceeding 10,000 compounds per day. What was required was, in effect, a "sample supermarket" to feed screening research. This article describes the development of a solution to this problem, called Haystack, which was designed to be this sample supermarket, but with the addition of extensive use of robotics and computer based automation to reduce the scope for human error. The Haystack system consists of three broad types of modules which are: Sample Storage and Retrieval, Sample Dispensing and Preparation, and Sample Tracking and Data Management.

19F-NMR in Target-based Drug Discovery

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (26) ◽  
pp. 4964-4983 ◽  
Author(s):  
CongBao Kang
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Conformational Changes ◽  
Protein Structures ◽  
19F Nmr ◽  
Binding Affinities ◽  
Protein Ligand Interactions ◽  
Compound Libraries ◽  
Ligand Interactions ◽  
Reference Ligand ◽  
Hit Identification

Solution NMR spectroscopy plays important roles in understanding protein structures, dynamics and protein-protein/ligand interactions. In a target-based drug discovery project, NMR can serve an important function in hit identification and lead optimization. Fluorine is a valuable probe for evaluating protein conformational changes and protein-ligand interactions. Accumulated studies demonstrate that 19F-NMR can play important roles in fragment- based drug discovery (FBDD) and probing protein-ligand interactions. This review summarizes the application of 19F-NMR in understanding protein-ligand interactions and drug discovery. Several examples are included to show the roles of 19F-NMR in confirming identified hits/leads in the drug discovery process. In addition to identifying hits from fluorinecontaining compound libraries, 19F-NMR will play an important role in drug discovery by providing a fast and robust way in novel hit identification. This technique can be used for ranking compounds with different binding affinities and is particularly useful for screening competitive compounds when a reference ligand is available.

Current Approaches to Drug Discovery for Chagas Disease: Methodological Advances

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 509-520
Author(s):  
Cauê B. Scarim ◽  
Chung M. Chin
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Chagas Disease ◽  
Drug Candidates ◽  
Lead Compounds ◽  
New Drug ◽  
Compound Libraries ◽  
Screening Assays ◽  
Cruzi Infection

Background: In recent years, there has been an improvement in the in vitro and in vivo methodology for the screening of anti-chagasic compounds. Millions of compounds can now have their activity evaluated (in large compound libraries) by means of high throughput in vitro screening assays. Objective: Current approaches to drug discovery for Chagas disease. Method: This review article examines the contribution of these methodological advances in medicinal chemistry in the last four years, focusing on Trypanosoma cruzi infection, obtained from the PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Results: Here, we have shown that the promise is increasing each year for more lead compounds for the development of a new drug against Chagas disease. Conclusion: There is increased optimism among those working with the objective to find new drug candidates for optimal treatments against Chagas disease.

Experimental and Computational Approaches to Improve Binding Affinity in Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 1651-1660
Author(s):  
Anuraj Nayarisseri
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Drug Design ◽  
Binding Affinity ◽  
Chemical Biology ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Structure Based Drug Design ◽  
Computational Approaches ◽  
Drug Designing ◽  
Traditional Drug ◽  
Computer Based

Drug discovery is one of the most complicated processes and establishment of a single drug may require multidisciplinary attempts to design efficient and commercially viable drugs. The main purpose of drug design is to identify a chemical compound or inhibitor that can bind to an active site of a specific cavity on a target protein. The traditional drug design methods involved various experimental based approaches including random screening of chemicals found in nature or can be synthesized directly in chemical laboratories. Except for the long cycle design and time, high cost is also the major issue of concern. Modernized computer-based algorithm including structure-based drug design has accelerated the drug design and discovery process adequately. Surprisingly from the past decade remarkable progress has been made concerned with all area of drug design and discovery. CADD (Computer Aided Drug Designing) based tools shorten the conventional cycle size and also generate chemically more stable and worthy compounds and hence reduce the drug discovery cost. This special edition of editorial comprises the combination of seven research and review articles set emphasis especially on the computational approaches along with the experimental approaches using a chemical synthesizing for the binding affinity in chemical biology and discovery as a salient used in de-novo drug designing. This set of articles exfoliates the role that systems biology and the evaluation of ligand affinity in drug design and discovery for the future.

Secondary Metabolites of Plant Origin containing Carbazole as Lead Molecule: A Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 05 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atul Sharma ◽  
Devender Pathak
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Heterocyclic Compounds ◽  
Biological Activities ◽  
Chemical Compounds ◽  
Lethal Effect ◽  
Chemical Diversity ◽  
Chemical Transformations ◽  
Pharmacological Effects ◽  
Structural Class ◽  
Biological Targets

Keeping this fact that study of a body is biology but life is all about chemicals and chemical transformations, many medicinal chemist start research in finding new and novel chemical compounds which having pharmacological activities. Most of those chemical compounds which are having active pharmacological effects are heterocyclic compounds. Heterocyclic compounds clutch a particular place among pharmaceutically active natural and synthetic compounds. The ability to serve both as biomimetics and reactive pharmacophores of heterocyclic nuclei is incredible and it has principally contributed to their unique value as traditional key elements of numerous drugs. These heterocyclic nuclei offer a huge area for new lead molecules for drug discovery and for generation of activity relationships with biological targets to enhance pharmacological effects. For these reasons, it is not surprising that this structural class has received special attention in drug discovery. The hydrogen bond acceptors and donors arranged in a manner of a semi-rigid skeleton in heterocyclic rings and therefore they can present a varied display of significant pharmacophores. Lead identification and optimization of drug target probable can be achieved by generation of chemical diversity produced by derivatization of heterocyclic pharmacophores with different groups or substituents. A tricyclic carbazole nucleus is an integral part of naturally occurring alkaloids and synthetic derivatives, possessing various potential biological activities such as anticancer, antimicrobial and antiviral. Binding mechanism of carbazole with target receptor as a molecule or fused molecule exhibits the potential lethal effect.

Synthetic Strategies to Access Heteroatomic Spirocentres Embedded in Natural Products

Synthesis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Badart ◽  
Bill C. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Natural Products ◽  
Heterocyclic Compound ◽  
Chemical Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Coupling Reactions ◽  
Conjugate Additions ◽  
Biological Targets ◽  
Compound Libraries ◽  
The Common ◽  
Significant Attention

AbstractThe spirocyclic motif is abundant in natural products and provides an ideal three-dimensional template to interact with biological targets. With significant attention historically expended on the synthesis of flat-heterocyclic compound libraries, methods to access the less-explored three-dimensional medicinal-chemical space will continue to increase in demand. Herein, we highlight by reaction class the common strategies used to construct the spirocyclic centres embedded in a series of well-studied natural products.1 Introduction2 Cycloadditions3 Palladium-Catalysed Coupling Reactions4 Conjugate Additions5 Imines, Aminals, and Hemiaminal Ethers6 Mannich-Type Reactions7 Oxidative Dearomatisation8 Alkylation9 Organometallic Additions10 Conclusions

scholarly journals Fragment Library of Natural Products and Compound Databases for Drug Discovery

Biomolecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana L. Chávez-Hernández ◽  
Norberto Sánchez-Cruz ◽  
José L. Medina-Franco
Keyword(s):  
Natural Products ◽  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Synthetic Compounds ◽  
Drug Candidates ◽  
Compound Libraries ◽  
Chemical Database ◽  
Fragment Library ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Fragment Libraries ◽  
Fragment Based Drug Discovery

Natural products and semi-synthetic compounds continue to be a significant source of drug candidates for a broad range of diseases, including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is causing the current pandemic. Besides being attractive sources of bioactive compounds for further development or optimization, natural products are excellent substrates of unique substructures for fragment-based drug discovery. To this end, fragment libraries should be incorporated into automated drug design pipelines. However, public fragment libraries based on extensive collections of natural products are still limited. Herein, we report the generation and analysis of a fragment library of natural products derived from a database with more than 400,000 compounds. We also report fragment libraries of a large food chemical database and other compound datasets of interest in drug discovery, including compound libraries relevant for COVID-19 drug discovery. The fragment libraries were characterized in terms of content and diversity.

scholarly journals ChemBioServer 2.0: an advanced web server for filtering, clustering and networking of chemical compounds facilitating both drug discovery and repurposing

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 2602-2604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelos Karatzas ◽  
Juan Eiros Zamora ◽  
Emmanouil Athanasiadis ◽  
Dimitris Dellis ◽  
Zoe Cournia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Perfect Match ◽  
Web Server ◽  
Drug Repurposing ◽  
Chemical Compounds ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Substructure Search ◽  
Similarity Network ◽  
Compound Libraries ◽  
Network Analysis Metrics

Abstract Summary ChemBioServer 2.0 is the advanced sequel of a web server for filtering, clustering and networking of chemical compound libraries facilitating both drug discovery and repurposing. It provides researchers the ability to (i) browse and visualize compounds along with their physicochemical and toxicity properties, (ii) perform property-based filtering of compounds, (iii) explore compound libraries for lead optimization based on perfect match substructure search, (iv) re-rank virtual screening results to achieve selectivity for a protein of interest against different protein members of the same family, selecting only those compounds that score high for the protein of interest, (v) perform clustering among the compounds based on their physicochemical properties providing representative compounds for each cluster, (vi) construct and visualize a structural similarity network of compounds providing a set of network analysis metrics, (vii) combine a given set of compounds with a reference set of compounds into a single structural similarity network providing the opportunity to infer drug repurposing due to transitivity, (viii) remove compounds from a network based on their similarity with unwanted substances (e.g. failed drugs) and (ix) build custom compound mining pipelines. Availability and implementation http://chembioserver.vi-seem.eu.

scholarly journals A drug discovery-oriented non-invasive protocol for protein crystal cryoprotection by dehydration, with application for crystallization screening.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dom Bellini
Keyword(s):  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Ligand Binding ◽  
Protein Crystal ◽  
Macromolecular Crystallography ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Water Fraction ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Vapour Diffusion ◽  
Large Compound ◽  
Fragment Libraries

In X-ray macromolecular crystallography, cryoprotection of crystals mounted on harvesting loops is achieved when the water in the sample solvent transitions to vitreous ice before crystalline ice forms. This is achieved by rapid cooling in liquid nitrogen or propane. Protocols for protein crystal cryoprotection are based on either increasing environmental pressure or reducing the water fraction in the solvent. This study presents a new protocol for cryoprotecting crystals. It is based on vapour diffusion dehydration of the crystal drop to reduce the water fraction in the solvent by adding a highly concentrated salt solution, 13 M potassium formate (KF13), directly to the reservoir. Cryoprotection by the KF13 protocol is non-invasive to the crystal, high throughput, not labour intensive, can benefit diffraction resolution and ligand binding, and is very useful in cases with high redundancy such as drug discovery projects which utilize very large compound or fragment libraries. Moreover, an application of KF13 to discover new crystal hits from clear drops of equilibrated crystallization screening plates is also shown.

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