Ratio encoding combinatorial libraries with stable isotopes and their utility in pharmaceutical research

Combinatorial libraries are an important tool for lead discovery in the pharmaceutical industry. Advances in high throughput screening coupled with combinatorial chemistry can significantly reduce the time to find lead compounds. A major difficulty in developing large combinatorial libraries is the ability to identify active compounds. This paper describes a rapid and sensitive encoding/decoding methodology that utilizes stable isotopes and mass spectrometry. The ability of mass spectrometry to precisely determine the intensity of isotopic abundances provides a unique encoding strategy employing synthetically generated ratios of stable isotopes in a compound as the code. The application of ratio encoding is demonstrated using peptoid and imidazole chemistries. Supporting data demonstrate that the incorporation of one or more stable isotopes using unique-predetermined ratios can encode chemical libraries. In addition, the presence of a unique isotopic pattern in a ligand can facilitate the pharmacokinetic analysis. Isotope incorporation into a compound and subsequently into its metabolites reliably distinguishes products from other molecules in the mass spectrum. This is illustrated by metabolic analyses of peptoid and imidazole compounds.