Identification of small molecule targets on functional protein microarrays.

Abstract

Small molecules, such as metabolites and hormones, interact with proteins to regulate numerous biological pathways, which are often aberrant in disease. Small molecule drugs have been successfully exploited to specifically perturb such processes and thereby, decrease and even eliminate disease progression. Although there are compelling reasons to fully characterize interactions of small molecules with all proteins from an organism for which an intended drug regimen is planned, currently available technologies are not yet up to this task. High-content functional protein microarrays, containing hundreds to thousands of proteins, are new tools that show great potential for meeting this need. In this chapter, we review examples and methods for profiling small molecules on high-content functional protein arrays and discuss considerations for troubleshooting.