HPLC Supplies for the Life Science

High-Throughput Screening (HTS)

For the past 13 years, pharmaceutical companies have successfully used PolyLC SEC columns to screen small molecules combinatorial libraries of up to 2500 components, per run,  to identify small molecules that bind with high affinity to a target protein.  Such molecules migrate through the SEC column with the protein and elute in the Vo peak instead of in the Vt peak with the rest of the small molecules.  Small molecules in the Vo peak are then identified and a new library is synthesized with features in common with the high-affinity subset. Several such iterations may produce a drug candidate with very high affinity (Kd < 100 nM) and selectivity.

The SEC must be completed in less than one minute or even high-affinity molecules will start to diffuse off the target protein. PolyLC’s SEC columns can separate the Vo and Vt peaks to baseline under these conditions, which is essential for preventing false positives. (from G.C. Adam et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130 (2008) 16704)