Empowering Drug Discovery and Development

Target identification (ID) is a crucial step in the drug discovery and development process. It is aimed at identifying specific molecules or biological pathways that play a key role in a disease process and can be targeted by therapeutic interventions.

HuProt™ Human Proteome Microarray is a powerful tool for target identification studies as it allows researchers to identify how a compound or molecule of interest interacts with human proteins at a proteome-wide scale. In a single experiment HuProt can assess protein binding to a wide variety of compounds or molecules including, proteins (protein-protein interactions), DNA, RNA, antibodies (antibody specificity studies), and many more.

For certain projects the study of membrane proteins may be of special interest as they are key targets for therapeutic intervention, with over 60% of FDA-approved drugs acting on membrane protein targets. However, studying membrane proteins is challenging due to the necessity of embedding them in lipid bilayers to ensure they retain their native structure. To address this need, and to complement data from proteome-wide HuProt analysis, CDI Labs also offers Target ID services using VirD™ Membrane Protein Microarrays. VirD microarrays use a viral-based expression technology to express individual membrane proteins embedded in a cell membrane. Purified virions displaying correctly-folded proteins are printed onto glass to create VirD microarrays. VirD microarrays eliminate the problems encountered when using other methodologies for membrane protein analysis, such as high background from contaminating endogenous proteins in cell-based systems, or receptor inactivation when using detergents or nanodiscs for protein purification.