Development of an inhibitor screening platform via mass spectrometry

Commonly used methods for isolated enzyme inhibitor screening typically rely on fluorescent or chemiluminescent detection techniques that are often indirect and/or coupled assays. Mass spectrometry (MS) has been widely reported for measuring the conversion of substrates to products for enzyme assays and has more recently been demonstrated as an alternative readout system for inhibitor screening. In this report, a high-throughput mass spectrometry (HTMS) readout platform, based on the direct measurement of substrate conversion to product, is presented. The rapid ionization and desorption features of a new generation matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-triple quadrupole (MALDI-QqQ) mass spectrometer are shown to improve the speed of analysis to greater than 1 sample per second while maintaining excellent Z' values. Furthermore, the readout was validated by demonstrating the ability to measure IC(50) values for several known kinase inhibitors against cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). Finally, when the assay performance was compared with a common ADP accumulation readout system, this HTMS approach produced better signal-to-background ratios, higher Z' values, and a reagent cost of about $0.03 per well compared with about $0.60 per well for the fluorescence assay. Collectively, these data demonstrate that a MALDI-QqQ-MS-based readout platform offers significant advantages over the commonly used assays in terms of speed, sensitivity, reproducibility, and reagent cost.