SMM Screening Services
Using its SMM platform, Ligon Discovery offers a highly cost-effective small-molecule high-throughput screening service that enables researchers to rapidly identify chemical ligands for any purified protein of interest without the need for costly investment in chemical libraries or screening infrastructur
Minimal Protein Requirements. Executing a small-molecule screen requires only a small amount of a protein- typically about 50 micrograms is sufficient to screen 20,000 compounds. Proteins can be screened in purified form, either native or epitope-tagged, or in the form of cellular lysates. The latter is particularly useful if the protein is difficult to purify, unstable, or if it is important to screen the protein in its native cellular context, such as within a multi-protein complex.
Diverse Chemical Collections. SMM screens can be performed against compounds selected from Ligon’s own collection of 75,000 compounds, from a customer’s own collection, or from a third party’s collection. With an SMM feature size of 200 microns, very only very small amounts of compound are required for each screen. Synthetic, diversity-oriented, target-focused, natural product (purified or mixtures), bioactive, fragment or almost any other type of chemcial compounds are compatible with SMM.
Fast & Cost-Effective. A typical screen of 20,000-50,000 compounds can be completed within 6-12 weeks. Ligon provides customers a final screening report listing all hits with structures as well as access to all the screening data if desired. The inherent efficiencies of microarrays and simplicity of the SMM screening process enables us to offer high-throughput screening services at a fraction of the cost of conventional HTS approaches. The cost of a complete small molecule screen starts as low as $10,000 for a 10,000-compound screen, and can reach as low as $0.30 per compound screened for large-scale projects.
Follow-up Services. Ligon and its network of collaborators can also provide further discovery services to evaluate and triage ligands that are identified in SMM screens. Biophysical assays such as surface plasmon resonance (SPR), mass spectrometry, isothermal calorimetry (ITC), thermal melt, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and X-ray crystallography can validate, quantify and characterize the ligand-protein interactions. A spectrum of biochemical and cellular assays can be performed to characterize the biological effects of small molecules against purified targets or within cells. Medicinal chemistry services can be provided for modification of initial hits for evaluation of structure-activity relationships, and to identify novel structures with higher affinity, potency or specificity.
A list of representative publications describing the SMM technology and ligand discoveries made with SMM can be found here.
For further information on our SMM screening services or for a detailed quote, please contact us at info@ligondiscovery.com or (617) 453 0952.