Abstract
Inhibitor screening is an important tool for drug development, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most used in vitro inhibitor screening tool is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). However, ELISA-based inhibitor screening is time consuming and has a limited dynamic range. Using fluorescently and magnetically modulated biosensors (MMB), we developed a rapid and sensitive inhibitor screening tool. This study demonstrates its performance by screening small molecules and neutralizing antibodies as potential inhibitors of the interaction between the spike protein 1 (S1) of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. The MMB-based assay is highly sensitive, has minimal non-specific binding, and is much faster than the commonly used ELISA (2 h vs. 7–24 h). We anticipate that our method will lead to a remarkable advance in screening for new drug candidates.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 4814 |
| Journal | Sensors |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2 Jul 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Funding
Funding: This research was funded by the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology (3-16908), the National Foundation for Practical and Engineering Science (3-14628) (Israel Ministry of Science and Technology,) and Bar-Ilan Dangoor Centre for Personalized Medicine.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| National Foundation for Practical and Engineering Science | 3-14628 |
| Ministry of science and technology, Israel | 3-16908 |
Keywords
- Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2
- Inhibitor screening
- Magnetically aggregated biosensors
- Neutralizing antibodies
- SARS-CoV-2
- Small molecules
- Spike protein