A Discovery Funnel for Nucleic Acid Binding Drug Candidates.

ABSTRACT: Computational approaches are becoming increasingly popular for the discovery of drug candidates against a target of interest. Proteins have historically been the primary targets of many virtual screening efforts. While in silico screens targeting proteins has proven successful, other classes of targets, in particular DNA, remain largely unexplored using virtual screening methods. With the realization of the functional importance of many non-cannonical DNA structures such as G-quadruplexes, increased efforts are underway to discover new small molecules that can bind selectively to DNA structures. Here, we describe efforts to build an integrated in silico and in vitro platform for discovering compounds that may bind to a chosen DNA target. Millions of compounds are initially screened in sili

SUBMITTER: Holt PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3090163 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature