Quantitative Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry for Simultaneous Structural Characterization and Affinity Indexing of Single Target Drug Candidate Libraries

Anal Chem. 2024 Aug 13;96(32):13015-13024. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.4c01001. Epub 2024 Jul 29.

Abstract

Hydrogen-deuterium eXchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) is increasingly used in drug development to locate binding sites and to identify allosteric effects in drug/target interactions. However, the potential of this technique to quantitatively analyze drug candidate libraries remains largely unexplored. Here, a collection of 13 WDR5-targeting small molecules with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) dissociation coefficients (KD) ranging from 20 nM to ∼116 μM were characterized using differential HDX-MS (ΔHDX-MS). Conventional qualitative analysis of the ΔHDX-MS data set revealed the binding interfaces for all compounds and allosteric effects where present. We then demonstrated that ΔHDX-MS signal-to-noise (S/N) not only can rank library-relative affinity but also can accurately predict KD from a calibration curve constructed from high-quality SPR data. Three methods for S/N calculation are explored, each suitable for libraries with different characteristics. Our results demonstrate the potential for ΔHDX-MS use in drug candidate library affinity validation and/or determination while simultaneously characterizing structure.

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange-Mass Spectrometry* / methods
  • Small Molecule Libraries* / chemistry
  • Small Molecule Libraries* / metabolism
  • Surface Plasmon Resonance* / methods

Substances

  • Small Molecule Libraries