High-throughput Screening
BOC Sciences provides high-quality, customized, high-throughput drug screening services based on experimental methods at the molecular and cellular levels. To ensure the reliability of the service, we are equipped with a high capacity chemical library, automated operating system, high sensitivity detection system, efficient data processing system and highly specific drug screening model. In the process of high throughput screening, BOC Sciences can carry out quality control, information tracking and data storage for all key steps according to customers' requirements and industry standards, to ensure the safety of all outputs.
High-throughput screening(HTS) technology is a method for screening drug candidates that interact with targets from a sample pool by using microplates containing molecules (such as enzymes and receptors) and cells as carriers. Drug candidates are screened for the effect on the biological activity of the target or cells. In the process of high-throughput screening, multiple disciplines are closely combined, such as pharmaceutical chemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, mathematics, microbiology and computer science. With the rapid development of high-throughput screening technology, it has become an important way to discover new drugs.
Our Advantages
- Multiple high-throughput screening methods
- Large high-throughput screening compound library
- High specificity
- Continuous update of the compound library
- Strict quality control (QC) standards
- Automated processing, large-scale data analysis
Our HTS Services
High-throughput screening can test thousands of compounds in a short period of time to identify compounds called hits that can modulate the target or cell biological activity.
The general process of our high-throughput screening includes target identification and validation, assay development and validation, pilot screening of a subset of compounds, primary and secondary screening, data analysis, hit confirmation, and activity determination (IC50 / EC50 value determination). The above steps are only the beginning in drug discovery because hits need to be continuously expanded to further the hit-to-lead investigation program and lead optimization.
Figure 1. Our general process for high-throughput screening and drug development process
Our assay capabilities
The establishment of strict analysis methods is the main problem in the establishment of automatic screening. The clearer the difference between the negative control and the positive control, the greater the likelihood of obtaining high-quality data. Cell-based assays and biochemical assays are used to detect the difference. Commonly used are fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), fluorescence polarization (FP), homogeneous time-resolved fluorescence (HTRF) and other fluorescence reading modes, as well as high-content imaging, surface plasmon resonance and electrophoresis analysis, etc.
BOC Sciences' professional team uses various detection techniques to screen the corresponding compound libraries. These compound libraries include general libraries with thousands of small molecules, libraries for specific related targets, libraries for different specific fields, libraries for different diseases, and so on. We use our own or customer-provided compound libraries for high-throughput screening to select hit compounds.
Our HTS compound libraries
- Fragment libraries
- Diversity libraries
- DNA encoded chemical libraries
- Natural product- based libraries
- Targeted libraries(e.g. GPCR, kinase, ion channel, protease, nuclear receptor, epigenetic libraries)
- Focused libraries(e.g. CNS property space, anticancer, antiviral, antibacterial)
- Bioactive compound libraries
- FDA-approved drug libraries
Our Methods
- Optical detection technology
- Radioactive detection technology
- Fluorescence detection technology
- Multifunctional microplate detection system
Hit expansion
Our computational hit expansion service uses the original hits obtained through screening to perform subsequent structure-activity relationship (SAR) analysis and expand the relevant active compound library.
Our expertise is from industrial and academic backgrounds. We can provide a wide range of screenings on multiple platforms and advice for development and analysis from the initial stage of the development to project completion.
References
- Bajorath, J. (2002). Integration of virtual and high-throughput screening. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 1(11), 882.
- Gao, H., Korn, J. M., Ferretti, S., Monahan, J. E., Wang, Y., Singh, M., ... & Balbin, O. A. (2015). High-throughput screening using patient-derived tumor xenografts to predict clinical trial drug response. Nature medicine, 21(11), 1318.