Commonly used terms in drug discovery
High throughput screen: an optimised, miniaturised assay format that enables
the testing of > 100,000 chemically diverse compounds per day.
Assay: a test system in which biological activity can be detected
Hit: a molecule with confirmed concentration-dependent activity in a screen, and
known chemical structure. The output of most screens
Progressible hit: a representative of a compound series with activity via
acceptable mechanism of action and some limited structure-activity relationship
information
Lead: a compound with potential (as measured by potency, selectivity, physico-
chemical properties, absence of toxicity or novelty) to progress to a full drug
development programme
Pharmacophore: minimal structure with essential features for activity
The life history of a successful drug
Drug discovery
Library of compounds
Initial characterisation
In vitro screening: human/animal
Pre-clinical trials receptor/enzyme assay; reporter
system
Regulatory approval sought to start
Hits/lead
trials in humans
Biochemical, tissue or animal model
Clinical trials Phases I, II, III of function
Submission of marketing/manufacturing lead
authorisation application to regulatory
Animal model of therapeutic target
authorities
ADME, formulation, acute toxicology
Regulatory authorities review
information and grant (or refuse) licences
Product goes on sale
Post-marketing surveillance
High throughput screening for drug discovery
FACT 1: recent understanding of disease mechanisms has dramatically increased
no. of protein targets for new drug treatment
FACT 2: new technologies have increased the no. of drugs that can be tested for
activity at these targets.
high throughput screening (HTS) is 1 tool for early-stage drug discovery
HTS is process by which large nos. of compounds are rapidly tested for their
ability to modify the properties of a selected biological target.
Goal is to identify hits or leads
- affect target in desired manner
- active at fairly low concs ( more likely to show specificity)
- new structure
The greater the no. and diversity of compounds screened, the more successful
screen is likely to be.
HTS = 50,000-100,000 cpds screened per day!!!
Goals and limitations of HTS
Aim of screening is to find progressible hits, not to discover progressible hit
the lead molecule itself
targeted synthetic design
Lead
The majority of drug targets are
a) G-protein coupled 7 TM receptors (est total 5000)
b) nuclear receptors (est total >150)
c) ion channels (est total 1000)
d) enzymes (est total uncertain)
Take top 100 drugs - 18 bind to GPCR
- 10 bind to nuclear receptors
- 16 bind to ion channels
- most of remainder inhibit enzymes
Knowledge gained from one drug target can be transferred to related targets.
e.g molecular technology required to work with 1 GPCR is useful for other
GPCRs, including cloning and expression systems and info on structure and
ligands.
HTS can be used to screen for activity at all of these targets.
Activity = (a) potency
Implementation of HTS
Need 4 elements:
1) suitable libraries of compounds
Source of chemicals for screen:
- in-house collection (5x105 - 106) of diverse samples.
- supplement by acquisitions from specialist companies
- combinatorial chemistry allows synthesis of large no of diverse molecules.
2) assay method configured for automation
Assay requirements:
a) pharmacology of the target should not be altered by the molecular
manipulations
b) cost of assay development and reagents low
c) easy to use and suitable for automation and miniaturisation. Use multi-well
plates: 96, 192, 384, 864, 1536 and assay requiring few manipulations, no plate-o-
plate transfers or washing steps
d) robust signal-to-noise ratio. Hit defined as activity above a certain threshold
e.g. Ki < 5 nM
Emax >30% increase over basal
e) ideally be non-radioactive
Often express target genes in appropriate host systems
e.g. bacterial, yeast, viral, invertebrate and mammalian cells.
(a) Radioligand binding assays
100-
Measures affinity of library compounds for target.
%SB
50- IC50 Ki
Need high affinity radioligand that binds to site of
interest and cells transfected with target site.
IC50
Log concentration
measure competitive displacement of radioligand from target site
Specificity can be assessed by including other possible targets in screen
relative affinity for multiple sites
1 1 D1
100-
%SB
50-
IC50 IC50 IC50
Log concentration
PROBLEM: hard to miniaturise radioactive assays (counting takes too long).
Alternative is to use fluorescence techniques.
) Cell-based fluorescence and radiotracer assays
seful for measuring ion-channel function
g.measure movement of Ca2+ in a fluorescent-imaging plate-reader (FLIPR)
cells are loaded with the fluorescent Ca 2+ indicator Fluo-3
depolarisation with high KCl activates Ca2+ channels and allows Ca2+ entry
(a) rest (b) with KCl
Ca2+ Ca2+
Ca2+
-60 mV Ca2+
-30 mV
488 nm fluorescence 488 nm increased
signal fluorescence
c) melanophore assays
Melanophores = pigmented cells derived from neural crest. Prepare immortalised
melanophores from Xenopus laevis
Gs, Gq
Gi DISPERSED
AGGREGATED MELANOSOMES
MELANOSOMES
light
melatonin agonist
antagonist
melanophores
transfection
CMV H2-AR
Plasmid vector
(d) Reporter gene assays
Rather than measure the immediate cellular response, it may be easier to
measure the subsequent transcriptional change
isoprenaline binding to -adrenceptors
cAMP
PKA activation and translocation to nucleus
phosphorylation of transcription factor CREB that recognises cAMP response
elements (CREs)
expression of reporter gene whose transcription is driven by an enhancer
containing CREs
Measure reporter gene product in HTS format
Examples of reporter genes: -galactosidase; luciferase; alkaline phosphatase;
green fluorescent protein.
Useful for measuring responses from Gi, Gs or Gq-coupled receptors
e) Cell viability assays
f) Cell proliferation assays
All screens have danger of false negatives and false positives
Not such a problem waste time and resources
HTS is less useful for evaluating - bioavailability
- - pharmackinetics
- toxicity
- absolute specificity
3) robotics workstation
Robots handle assays in multi-well formats.
- sample dilutions
- sample dispensing
- plate washing (more problematic with higher well density (844- and 1536-
well plates))
Hard to automate cell lysis or permeabilisation steps (necessary for many 2nd
messenger responses).
Full automation allows 24 h continuous operation without requiring shift work.
More efficient and economical.
4) computerised data handling system
A great deal of data is generated. Must be accurate and reproducible.
Need good computerised data handling systems.
Which strategy is best for hit identification?
When a target is identified, a decision has to be made about which chemicals to
screen, in order to identify potential lead compounds.
Random screening
All possible drug molecules screened against target.
Estimated no. of possible drug molecules is 1040!!!
This is simply not possible.
Focussed screening
A limited number of compounds are pre-selected for screening.
Has proved successful as a hit generation strategy.
Useful when 3D structure of target is known (e.g. crystal structure of a receptor)
- use computer modelling to predict optimal structure to interact with target
- use known ligand to construct 3D pharmacophore
In either case, select compounds from library or design new compounds and screen.
Focussed screening will find novel hits BUT the required information may not be
available.
Diversity screening
The aim is to synthesise, access and test all the molecules that could be
drug candidates.
How many diverse samples should be tested???
Glaxo suggest a sample set of up to 500,000 molecules HTS
Diversity screening will find unexpected hits and generate data for SAR.
Focussed and diversity screens can be run in parallel.
Case study from GlaxoWellcome
Target = enzyme with known inhibitors
Hit = >70% inhibition at 1 M
Focussed mode
Diversity mode 6000 compounds selected using a 3D
> 5 x 105 compounds tested; pharmacophore; 250 of the 517 hits matched.
517 hits found
approaches were complementary. Novel lead series identified.
After 18 months, 2 chemical series still being optimised, one from each
Choice of expression system for GPCRs
Ligand binding and transduction properties are effected by cell type, receptor
density, and presence of signal transductional elements
must choose expression system carefully
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
Yeast-based systems e.g. Saccharomyces cerevisiae
(also used to express protein tyrosine kinases, peptide hormones and functional ion
channels)
- May not get functional coupling of
- grow rapidly transfected GPCRs to yeast G-proteins.
- easy and cheap Overcome this by coupling GPCRs to yeast
- readily amenable to genetic manipulation
pheromone response pathway agonists
- tolerant to solvents used to dissolve drugs
promote cell growth or activity of reporter
e.g.DMSO, methanol gene construct
- may not get proper post-tranlational
modification e.g. many GPCRs are not
glycosylated in yeast, or cell surface
Bacterial cells e.g. E.coli expression.
- grow rapidly
- easy and cheap
- Low expression levels
- Some post-translational modifications not
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
Baculovirus/insect cell system e.g. Sf9
cells
- GPCR might not be glycosylated
- GPCR is occasionally inactive
- high levels of expression of functional
protein
- ligand binding properties similar to
native
receptor
- can co-express receptor and
mammalian
G-proteins
- ideal for structural analysis - production of permanent cell lines may
be a difficult and lengthy process
Mammalian cells e.g. CHO, HEK - can be expensive
- receptor promiscuity (different G-
- most authentic background for proteins activated by 1 receptor
expression of GPCRs multiple signals)
protein synthesis - no. of suitable G-proteins may be
membrane insertion limited
post-translational
modification
lipid composition of
Yeast-based screen and selection for identification of agonists
for a human orphan GPCR
(a) In yeast, normal GPCR- (b) Substitution of human orphan
initiated pathway results in cell GPCR and human G protein yields a
cycle arrest in response to strain that only grows if receptor is
agonist stimulated
Yeast human
ligand ligand
Yeast human
receptor receptor
Yeast G human G
protein protein
growth
arrest
Spot individual cpds onto lawn of
modified yeast. Detect agonists by
growth of yeast on the plate around
the site of cpd application
(c) alternatively, introduce a random peptide expression library; cells will only grow if
the peptide stimulates the receptor
growth
orphan
receptor
peptide peptide
ligand
peptide
expression
library
