A Potential Technique Designed for an Efficient Drug Target- Cellular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA)

Scientists have designed a way of directly calculating how efficient drugs are in attaining their targets, which could direct to the development of novel and enhanced drug substances.The research, by researchers at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, has led to the growth of a tool called Cellular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA).

As per researchers, most drugs function by holding to one or more proteins to impact their function. This has created issues when trying to recognize the appropriate target proteins and developing drug molecules that are capable to search for and combine to its target proteins.

CETSA operates by using the concept that target proteins are generally stabilized when drug molecules bind.Head investigator of the research, explained:We have proven that the approach works on a wide range of targeted proteins and enables us to directly evaluate whether the drug molecules reach their targets in cells and animal models.

“We think that CETSA will eventually assist to enhance the efficiency of a lot of drugs and lead to better drug molecules and more effective treatments”.

Former research have looked at ways of potentially enhancing drug performance. A research from Uppsala University, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, exposed the concept of a polypeptide composed of 42 amino acids to which virtually any target-seeking organic molecule can be bound. Within this very recent research, the researchers also reviewed the processes in which cells in the human body can turn out to be resistant to drugs.

While in some clinical studies on humans, it has been exposed that some drug molecules are not able to find the appropriate protein. The scientists think that CETSA has the capability to predict whether current drugs are appropriate for certain patients. Project team leader Daniel aspires to start the use of CETSA for patient studies. He said:”We think that the approach can offer an essential diagnostic tool in the treatment of cancer, for example, as CETSA can, in principle, allow us to figure out which drug is very effective at aiming for the proteins in the tumor.

“This also creates it feasible for clinicians to determine at an early stage of treatment whether the tumor has developed a certain kind of resistance and which type of treatment could then be more appropriate for the patient.”