Protein affinity map of chemical space

Affinity fingerprinting is a quantitative method for mapping chemical space based on binding preferences of compounds for a reference panel of proteins. An effective reference panel of <20 proteins can be empirically selected which shows differential interaction with nearly all compounds. By using this map to iteratively sample the chemical space, identification of active ligands from a library of 30 000 candidate compounds has been accomplished for a wide spectrum of specific protein targets. In each case, <200 compounds were directly assayed against the target. Further, analysis of the fingerprint database suggests a strategy for effective selection of affinity chromatography ligands and scaffolds for combinatorial chemistry. With such a system, the large numbers of potential therapeutic targets emerging from genome research can be categorized according to ligand binding properties, complementing sequence based classification.