NMR spectroscopy in structure-based drug design.

NMR methods for the study of motion in proteins continue to improve, and a number of studies of protein-ligand complexes relevant to drug design have been reported over the past year, for example, studies of fatty-acid-binding protein and SH2 and SH3 domains. These studies have begun to give a picture of the structural dynamics of protein-ligand complexes and to relate the changes in dynamics on ligand binding to the origins of specificity. NMR is also valuable in locating binding sites, both qualitatively from changes in chemical shift and more precisely from distances measured from relaxation effects. The conformation of the bound ligand can provide useful information for drug design, and over the past year improvements in methods have made it easier to obtain quantitative information from transferred nuclear Overhauser effect experiments.