New approaches for NMR screening in drug discovery

NMR spectroscopy has become a powerful and versatile tool in pharmaceutical research, particularly for studies of protein-ligand interactions. During the past few years, new NMR screening techniques have been developed. Some of them aim to increase sensitivity, which translates directly into higher throughput and/or decrease of protein consumption. Other approaches introduce completely new screening concepts and yield qualitatively different information. A brief description of some new NMR screening techniques applied to drug discovery is given in this review, and their principal advantages and drawbacks are discussed. These methods have made an appreciable contribution to drug design, leading to the discovery of a large number of high affinity ligands for biologically relevant protein targets.: