Affinity selection and mass spectrometry-based strategies to identify lead compounds in combinatorial libraries

The screening of diverse libraries of small molecules created by combinatorial synthetic methods is a recent development which has the potential to accelerate the identification of lead compounds in drug discovery. We have developed a direct and rapid method to identify lead compounds in libraries involving affinity selection and mass spectrometry. In our strategy, the receptor or target molecule of interest is used to isolate the active components from the library physically, followed by direct structural identification of the active compounds bound to the target molecule by mass spectrometry. In a drug design strategy, structurally diverse libraries can be used for the initial identification of lead compounds. Once lead compounds have been identified, libraries containing compounds chemically similar to the lead compound can be generated and used to optimize the binding characteristics. These strategies have also been adopted for more detailed studies of protein-ligand interactions.