Activity artifacts in drug discovery and different facets of compound promiscuity

Compounds with apparent activity in a variety of assays might disable target proteins or produce false assay signals in the absence of specific interactions. In some instances, such effects are easy to detect, in others they are not. Observed promiscuity of compounds might be due to such non-specific assay artifacts. By contrast, promiscuity might also result from specific interactions with multiple targets. In the latter case, promiscuous compounds can be attractive candidates for certain therapeutic applications. However, compounds with artificial activity readouts are often not recognized and are further progressed, which presents a substantial problem for drug discovery. In this context, the concept of PAINS (pan-assay interference compounds) should be seriously considered, which makes it possible to eliminate flawed compounds from the discovery pipeline, even if their activities appear to be sound at a first glance.