From fragments to follow-ups: rapid hit expansion by making use of EU-OPENSCREEN resources

Abstract

Quite frequently, it is the progression of initial crystallographic fragment screening hits into more potent binders to their target, which constitutes the major bottleneck in many academic compound or drug development projects. While high quality starting points are critical to the success of a drug development project, it is equally important to have accessible pathways for further compound development. Here, we present two crystallographic fragment screening campaigns using a 96 fragment sub-selection of the European Fragment Screening Library (EFSL) provided by EU-OPENSCREEN. The two campaigns against the targets endothiapepsin and the NS2B–NS3 Zika protease, yielded hit rates of 31% and 18%, respectively. Further, we present how within the framework of the EU-OPENSCREEN European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) fast identification of follow-up compounds can be realized. With just one round of testing related compounds from the European Chemical Biology Library, two follow-up binders for each of the two targets could be identified proving the feasibility of this approach.