Post by OMass Therapeutics

- Integrating protein dynamics into drug discovery -   Protein structure models have become increasingly accessible in recent years, either through experimental (e.g., CRYO-EM) or computational (e.g., AlphaFold) approaches. Despite protein dynamics being crucial for protein function and drug discovery, they are not routinely evident from these models.   Our recent publication in Current Opinion in Structural Biology entitled ‘The evolving role of hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry in early-stage drug discovery’ discusses how we, at OMass, have been trying to tackle this problem, which includes complementing our structural work with the use of hydrogen deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS).   HDX-MS is a technique that measures the exchange of backbone amide hydrogens with deuterium from solvent, allowing us to assess solvent accessibility and hydrogen bonding networks within proteins. HDX-MS data highlights dynamic regions within proteins, including changes associated with protein-ligand interactions. As an example, it can help us understand where a ligand binds and reveal associated allosteric effects propagated to distal regions of the protein.   We believe that continuing to incorporate HDX-MS, as well as other biophysical techniques, within our drug discovery cascade can better help us characterise protein ecosystems, provide new differentiated insights and ultimately, increase our probability of success against hard to drug targets in endocrinology and immunology.   Congrats to the team!   You can read the full paper here: https://lnkd.in/exrwPpSG   #OMass #Publication #Biotech #LifeSciences #DrugDiscovery #Innovation #Endocrinology #ImmunologicalDiseases