High-Throughput 1,536-Well Fluorescence Polarization Assays for α1-Acid Glycoprotein and Human Serum Albumin Binding

Two major plasma proteins in humans are primarily responsible for drug binding, the α₁-acid-glycoprotein (AGP) and human serum albumin (HSA). The availability of at least a semiquantitative high-throughput assay for assessment of protein binding is expected to aid in bridging the current gap between high-throughput screening and early lead discovery, where cell-based and biochemical assays are deployed routinely to test up to several million compounds rapidly, as opposed to the late-stage candidate drug profiling methods which test at most dozens of compounds at a time. Here, we describe the miniaturization of a pair of assays based on the binding- and displacement-induced changes in fluorescence polarization (FP) of fluorescent small molecule probes known to specifically target the drug-binding sites of these two proteins. A robust and reproducible assay performance was achieved in ≤4 µL assay volume in 1,536-well format. The assays were tested against a validation set of 10 known protein binders, and the results compared favorably with data obtained using protein-coated beads with high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. The miniaturized assays were taken to a high-throughput level in a screen of the LOPAC¹²⁸⁰ collection of 1,280 pharmacologically active compounds. The adaptation of the AGP and HSA FP assays to a 1,536-well format should allow their use in early-stage profiling of large-size compound sets.