Target Analysis
A drug target is a target molecule on which a drug acts to achieve curative effect. The discovery of drug targets is the premise of creating new drugs and the basis of drug screening. The discovery of new targets has a significant role in promoting the development of better innovative drugs. Comprehensive analysis of the target is the best way to identify innovative drug candidates. Relying on advanced technology platforms, BOC Sciences provides comprehensive target analysis services to select the best method for customers' drug discovery projects.
Service Scope
- Identification of drug targets and binding sites
The identification of drug targets is also called the identification of druggable proteins. A druggable protein refers to a protein that can produce a therapeutic effect by regulating the interaction with drugs and utilizing the interaction between them. To produce a therapeutic effect, drugs attach to specific sites on proteins called binding sites. The ability of a protein to bind to a drug depends on the amino acid sequence and spatial structure of the site. The more binding sites that are known, the more opportunities there are to create more effective and safer drugs. BOC Sciences uses a variety of computer technologies and proteomics methods to help find drug-binding sites in proteins, that is, potential drug targets, and help optimize drug development.
- Druggability assessment
Druggability means that the compound has undergone preliminary pharmacodynamic studies, early evaluation of pharmacokinetic properties and safety, and has the potential to be developed into a drug. Drugability assessment in the early stages of drug discovery is very important and is the link between drug discovery and drug development. Incorporating various factors related to druggability into the screening of candidate molecules can eliminate those protein molecules with undesired properties as early as possible, thereby avoiding waste of resources and time.
BOC Sciences provides druggability assessments for candidate molecules in the early stages of macromolecule drug discovery to assess potential stability, production or clinical failure risks prior to process development. Evaluation includes protein physical and chemical properties inspection, post-translational modification, stability evaluation, etc., helping customers to narrow the screening range of candidate molecules, assisting customers to select candidate molecules with the best biological activity and most suitable for drug production, prompting risks for later development, and assisting projects success.
Drugability assessment technical capabilities
- Protein sequence analysis and multiple sequence alignment
Protein primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids that make up the protein peptide chain. The primary structure of a protein determines the other higher order structures of the protein and defines the function of the protein. Sequence analysis of proteins is helpful for the analysis of protein structure and function. BOC Sciences uses mass spectrometry and non-mass spectrometry to analyze protein sequences, provides amino acid composition analysis, protein (N-terminal or C-terminal) sequencing, full sequence analysis, de novo sequencing and mutation analysis, and predicts protein function through sequence analysis. Furthermore, proteins with similar sequences have similar functions. Using a variety of algorithms, BOC Sciences determines the function of a protein by comparing similar sequences in a database.
- Visual analysis of protein structure
Structure determines function. Accurate analysis of structural information can provide important basic biological information for the development of new drugs. Relying on the advanced technology platform, BOC Sciences can provide customers with high-resolution, all-round visualization analysis services of drug target protein structures, and provide customers with follow-up ideas for designing improved drug compounds.
- Homology modeling
Homology modeling is to use the homology in sequence, structure and function between proteins of unknown structure and proteins of known structure to construct the three-dimensional structure of unknown structural proteins using known structural proteins as templates. BOC Sciences provides homology modeling of targets that lack specific structural information, and the results can help customers understand the structural properties of target proteins and analyze their structure-function relationships.