title: Structure-guided fragment screening for lead discovery.
abstract: Fragment-based ligand screening can be a highly effective strategy for drug discovery. In general, fragment hits interact efficiently with the target, and although the potency of these small binders is often low, their optimization into potent leads is tractable. For a hit optimization phase to take full advantage of a good quality fragment binder, we believe it is essential to obtain reliable structural data for the hits. In this review, we describe the methods used for structure-based fragment screening and fragment-to-lead optimization and discuss a number of applications from the literature.
authors.affiliation: Astex Technology Ltd, 436 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0QA, UK. m.verdonk@astex-technology.com
authors.forename: Marcel L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Verdonk
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hartshorn
mesh_terms: D001665:Binding Sites / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray / Q000379:methods; D015195:Drug Design; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008961:Models, Structural; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; C055217:lead-binding proteins