Nuclear magnetic resonance as a tool in drug discovery, metabolism and disposition

Nuclear magnetic resonance techniques have become critically important in the design of new pharmaceuticals, the characterization of drug-receptor interactions and metabolite identification. Advances in solvent suppression, coherent and incoherent magnetization transfer pathway selection, isotope editing and filtering, and diffusion filtering have made it possible to examine the interactions between small molecules and proteins or nucleic acids in great detail. Multiple schemes for high-throughput lead compound identification, metabolite screening and drug disposition have been proposed and reduced to practice. In particular, the coupling of NMR with other analytical methods, especially HPLC, combine the structural and dynamic detail available from NMR methods with the resolution and sensitivity of other analytical techniques.