Mass Spectrometry Based Assays for Drug Screening in the Early Phases of Drug Discovery

Electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometric methods useful for exploratory and early discovery drug screening are reviewed. All methods described involve studies of non-covalent complexes between biopolymer receptors and small molecule ligands formed in the condensed phase. The complexes can be transferred directly into the gas phase by ESI-MS using gentle experimental conditions. Gas phase screening applications are illustrated for drug ligand candidates noncovalently interacting with peptides, proteins, RNA, and DNA. In the condensed phase, the complexes can be also isolated, denatured and analyzed by ESI-MS to identify the small molecule ligands. Condensed phase drug screening examples are illustrated for the ESI-MS ancillary techniques of affinity chromatography, ultrafiltration, ultracentrifugation, gel permeation chromatography (GPC), reversed phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and capillary electrophoretic methods. Solid phase drug screening using MALDI-MS is illustrated for small molecule ligands bound to MALDI affinity probe tips and to beads. Since ESI and MALDI principally produce molecular ions, high throughput screening is achieved by analyzing mass indexed mixtures.

Keywords: Drug screening, mass spectrometry, electrospray ionization, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization, proteins, peptides, DNA, RNA, non-covalent binding, biopolymer-drug complexes, affinity chromatography, affinity extraction, ultrafiltration, frontal affinity chromatography, microconcentrator, pulsed ultrafiltration, ultracentrifugation, gel permeation chromatography, spin columns, reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, capillary isoelectric focusing, affinity probe tips, flow cytometry