Antibody-based immunoassays are widely used in exploratory preclinical and pharmaceutical research as tools for discovering new druggable protein targets. Read about the 10 ways to explore and map the human proteome and how it helps researchers and clinicians on their discovery journeys.
A key and ultimate aspect of biomedical research lies in translating the discoveries into clinical use, meaning the development of new diagnostic tools to prevent or treat human diseases.
To this end, the selection and validation of novel molecular targets have become of paramount importance. Since the vast majority of the targets of approved drugs are proteins, one way of identifying new potential drug targets is to analyze the human proteome at multiple levels: protein type, distribution, classification, and structural data in both healthy and cancerous tissue.
Antibody-based immunoassays are widely used in exploratory preclinical and pharmaceutical research as tools for discovering new biomarkers and druggable protein targets.
The Swedish Human Protein Atlas project has mapped all the human proteins in tissue, organs, and organelle using Triple A Polyclonal antibodies from Atlas Antibodies. Read about the 10 ways to explore the human proteome and how this helps researchers and clinicians on their discovery journeys.
Approved drugs target proteins and their function
Identifying new targets is a crucial part of any drug development program. Today, almost all pharmaceutical drugs act by targeting proteins in the human body and affecting their activity. Specifically, over 95% of the currently known drug targets are proteins (Santos 2017). Antagonists are drugs that inactivate the protein target, while drugs that activate the protein target are called agonists.
Target proteins mainly belong to four protein families, i.e., enzymes, transporters, ion channels, and receptors. The most frequent protein targeted (and for which successful drugs have been developed) include proteases, protein kinases, G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), CD markers, and nuclear hormone receptors (Imming 2006, Zheng 2006).
The protein targeted by a drug should potentially be linked to a disease process with less significant involvement in other important processes to limit potential side effects, have an expression pattern allowing for drug efficacy by showing tissue-specific expression, and have structural and functional properties allowing for drug specificity.
Hence, a precise human proteome map at multiple levels helps clinicians better detect proteins and molecular processes involved in health and disease and diagnose human conditions such as cancers, neurodegenerative, and other neurological disorders.