Application of high-throughput affinity-selection mass spectrometry for screening of chemical compound libraries in lead discovery

High-throughput screening of chemical libraries for compounds that interfere with a particular molecular target is among the most powerful methodologies applied in lead discovery at present. In this review, the authors describe a label-free, homogeneous, affinity-selection-based technology developed at Novartis, termed SpeedScreen, which is compared with similar technologies used for high-throughput screening in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The focus at present of SpeedScreen is twofold: first, this technology is applied to orphan genomic targets and to those targets that are non-tractable by a functional assay; second, this technology is applied complementary to the well-established traditional methodologies for the screening of molecular targets. In summary, the authors discuss the value of affinity-selection-based high-throughput screening as a complementary technology to the common functional screening platforms and the benefits as well as the limitations of this new technology are outlined.