Application note: Direct measurements of cellular metabolism for identification of mitochondrial drug targets

Drug target identification has a key role in the drug discovery value chain. A critical step in the development of pharmaceuticals is identifying the direct targets of potential drug candidates as well as distinguishing any secondary or off-target effects…

This application note provides a general overview of the Seahorse XF applications and workflows that can be applied to metabolic target identification studies.

One method of drug target identification, phenotypic screening, involves the addition of compounds to cells (or small model organisms) and measuring the impact on the phenotype or cell activity of interest. For compounds with a desirable impact on phenotype or cell function, the genes or gene products (ie, the targets) that the active compound directly perturbs must be identified.