Novel metabolic-focused high-throughput screening method developed

A new screening system developed by researchers has the potential to identify new drugs which potently block processes that are essential for cancer cell growth.

The team, from the University of California LA (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, US, have created their screening method to address the failings of other processes, by focusing on nucleotide metabolism.  

The high-throughput screening (HTS) system enables the researchers to discover selective inhibitors of metabolic pathways.  

The team performed a large-scale analysis of 430 kinase inhibitors that have annotated targets within cellular signalling pathways and many of which are being used in the clinic. Unexpectedly, multiple inhibitors were found to block nucleotide metabolism and their targets were revealed using mechanistic studies.

The researchers conclude that this screening method could be applied to identify new small molecule modulators of currently untargeted metabolic pathways, not only nucleotide metabolism, which can help lead to new drug discoveries.

The findings were published in Cell Chemical Biology.