Viruses

Viruses

ChemDiv offers high throughput screening (HTS) service
Viruses research platform

• HBV, HCV and coronavirus assays

• Luciferase and ELISA HTS assay platforms

• 7 virus-focused libraries: Antiviral Library, PLpro Library, 3CLpro Library, CORONAVIRUS Library, Antiviral HBV Library, Nucleoside Mimetics Library, Anti-HIV1 Library, 128K compounds in total

• Our support in compound selection based on your research project

• Screening from 10000 compound sets up to 300000 and more

• A quick start of your research project

• 25 years of experience

Viruses, owing to their responsibility for many diseases, end up taken apart for targets for possible treatment: from relatively novel SARS-CoV-2, which has PLpro and Mpro proteases as possible targets, to more familiar HBV, which already has a number of drugs available. Different parts of the viral lifecycle can be targeted: cell entry, viral synthesis, assembly and release stages all contain virus-specific proteins that can serve as targets for new and existing drugs. HTS assays are a mainstay of any drug development, and viral drugs are no exception.   

Our two main assay approaches for virus research are ELISA and luciferase-related platforms. ELISA highlights:

●      Antigen is bound to the wells

●      Antibodies for that antigen bind to it, all others are removed

●      Reporter enzyme-bearing antibodies bind to the antigen-bound antibodies

●      Enzyme substrate is then added, allowing for measurable color generation

Figure 1. Scheme outlining core processes for direct (upper part) and indirect (bottom part) ELISA

Luciferase-based platforms, in turn, can also be concisely summarized in four key points:

●      Luciferase, a reporter molecule, is linked to transcription regulation

●      The measurable increase in luminescence makes it visible

●      If needed, using a control molecule allows for a baseline response

●      With a comparison to baseline, a decrease in reporter response is much easier to decipher – no ambiguity in whether the reason is experiment-specific

ChemDiv provides assays for HBV, HCV (1A, 1B, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A), Covid (polymerase, PLpro, Mpro, helicase assays), HCV available as a cell-based assay; with others, not mentioned here, developed on demand.