Compound Transfer by Acoustic Droplet Ejection Promotes Quality and Efficiency in Ultra-High-Throughput Screening Campaigns.

Acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) as a means of transferring library compounds has had a dramatic impact on the way in which high-throughput screening campaigns are conducted in many laboratories. Two Labcyte Echo ADE liquid handlers form the core of the compound transfer operation in our 1536-well based ultra-high-throughput screening (uHTS) system. Use of these instruments has promoted flexibility in compound formatting in addition to minimizing waste and eliminating compound carryover. We describe the use of ADE for the generation of assay-ready plates for primary screening as well as for follow-up dose-response evaluations. Custom software has enabled us to harness the information generated by the ADE instrumentation. Compound transfer via ADE also contributes to the screening process outside of the uHTS system. A second fully automated ADE-based system has been used to augment the capacity of the uHTS system as well as to permit efficient use of previously picked compound aliquots for secondary assay evaluations. Essential to the utility of ADE in the high-throughput screening process is the high quality of the resulting data. Examples of data generated at various stages of high-throughput screening campaigns are provided. Advantages and disadvantages of the use of ADE in high-throughput screening are discussed.

Small-Molecule Library Subset Screening as an Aid for Accelerating Lead Identification.

Several small-compound library subsets (14,000 to 56,000) have been established to complement screening of a larger Genentech corporate library (~1,300,000). Two validation sets (~1% of the total library) containing compounds representative of the main library were chosen by selection of plates or individual compounds. Use of these subsets guided selection of assay configuration, validated assay reproducibility, and provided estimates of hit rates expected from our full library. A larger diversity subset representing the scaffold diversity of the full library (3.4% of the total) was designed for screening more challenging targets with limited reagent availability or low-throughput assays. Retrospective analysis of this subset showed hit rates similar to those of the main library while recovering a higher proportion of hit scaffolds. Finally, a property-restricted diversity set called the "in-between library" was established to identify ligand-efficient compounds of molecular size between those typically found in fragment and high-throughput screening libraries. It was screened at fivefold higher concentrations than the main library to facilitate identification of less potent yet ligand-efficient compounds. Taken together, this work underscores the value of generating multiple purpose-focused, diversity-based library subsets that are designed using computational approaches coupled with internal screening data analyses to accelerate the lead discovery process.