Rapid Protein–Ligand Affinity Determination by Photoinduced Hyperpolarized NMR

Abstract

The binding affinity determination of protein−ligand complexes is a cornerstone of drug design. State-of-the-art techniques are limited by lengthy and expensive processes. Building upon our recently introduced novel screening method utilizing photochemically induced dynamic nuclear polarization (photo-CIDNP) NMR, we provide the methodological framework to determine binding affinities within 5−15 min using 0.1 mg of protein. The accuracy of our method is demonstrated for the affinity constants of peptides binding to a PDZ domain and fragment ligands binding to the protein PIN1. The method can also be extended to measure the affinity of nonphoto-CIDNPpolarizable ligands in competition binding experiments. Finally, we demonstrate a strong correlation between the ligand-reduced signals in photo-CIDNP-based NMR fragment screening and the well-established saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR. Thus, our methodology measures protein−ligand affinities in the micro-to millimolar range in only a few minutes and informs on the binding epitope in a single-scan experiment, opening new avenues for early stage drug discovery approaches.