High-Throughput Sorting and Placement of One-Bead-One-Compound (OBOC) Libraries from Bulk to Single Wells in Organic Solvent

摘要

One-bead-one-compound (OBOC) solid-phase combinatorial chemistry has been used extensively in drug discovery. However, a major bottleneck has been the sorting of individual beads, while still swollen in organic solvent, into individual wells of a microwell plate. To solve this problem we have constructed an automated bead sorting system with integrated quality control that is capable of sorting and placing large numbers of beads in bulk to single wells of a 384-well plate, all in organic solvent. The bead sorter employs a unique, reciprocating fluidic design capable of depositing 1 bead per 1.5 s with an average accuracy of 97%. We quantified the performance of this instrument by sorting over 8,500 beads followed by cleaving the conjugated compound and confirming the chemical identity of each by LC/MS. This instrument should enable more efficient screening of combinatorial small molecule libraries without the need to dry beads or otherwise change chemical environment.