Application of parallel liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry for high throughput microsomal stability screening of compound libraries

Solution-phase and solid-phase parallel synthesis and high throughput screening have enabled biologically active and selective compounds to be identified at an unprecedented rate. The challenge has been to convert these hits into viable development candidates. To accelerate the conversion of these hits into lead development candidates, early assessment of the physicochemical and pharmacological properties of these compounds is being made. In particular, in vitro absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination (ADME) assays are being conducted at earlier and earlier stages of discovery with the goal of reducing the attrition rate of these potential drug candidates as they progress through development. In this report, we present an eight-channel parallel liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) system in combination with custom Visual Basic and Applescript automated data processing applications for high throughput early ADME. The parallel LC/MS system was configured with one set of gradient LC pumps and an eight-channel multiple probe autosampler. The flow was split equivalently into eight streams before the multiple probe autosampler and recombined after the eight columns and just prior to the mass spectrometer ion source. The system was tested for column-to-column variation and for reproducibility over a 17 h period (approximately 500 injections per column). The variations in retention time and peak area were determined to be less than 2 and 10%, respectively, in both tests. The parallel LC/MS system described permits time-course microsomal incubations (t(o), t(5) t(15), t(30)) to be measured in triplicate and enables estimations of t(1/2) microsomal stability. The parallel LC/MS system is capable of analyzing up to 240 samples per hour and permits the complete profiling up to two microtiter plates of compounds per day (i.e., 176 test substrate compounds + sixteen controls).