Chemical array method as a platform of chemical biology research

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago, I received the Sumiki-Umezawa Memorial Award. As an award winner’s paper, I wrote a review article entitled “Bioprobes for Investigating Mammalian Cell Cycle Control” which was published in The Journal of Antibiotics in 1998. This time, I write a Japanese review article reporting the recent achievements of the Osada group and our collaborators.

We established the Natural Products Depository (NPDepo) in RIKEN and collected many natural compounds. In order to utilize these valuable compounds effectively, we developed a new screening method, the chemical array method. The idea of the chemical array is based on the concept of the DNA microarray, namely the chemical array keeps small molecular compounds instead of DNA on a glass slide. We found that the chemical array is useful in detecting the interaction of proteins with small molecules.

In this review article, the development of the chemical array method and screening results are described.