Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 13.1
Overview of SMM strategy. Three key steps are generally involved in SMM
construction: library design and synthesis, microarray fabrication, and biological application.
Furka, Lam, and co-workers in 1988 [14,15]. It allows for the expeditious production
of a vast number of compound collections using a limited selection of building blocks.
Taking advantage of the evolution of robotic technology, pharmaceutical companies
can now easily produce more than 100,000 new compounds each year.
To design a small-molecule library compatible with microarray screening, the
following features are generally considered as a requisite: (1) a tag that allows for
the small molecules to be stably immobilized onto the array, (2) a linker to minimize
the steric hindrance between proteins and the solid support surface, and (3) a protein
recognition head or element that endows the binding affinity toward the protein target
[16]. One key consideration during library design is that the small molecules should
have the potential to possess relevant biological activity. The design of the molecules
could be based on a natural product scaffold, which exhibits biological activity, or
known synthetic drugs. Once a scaffold with interesting biological activity is targeted,
