Frontal affinity chromatography with MS detection (FAC-MS) in drug discovery.

The emergence of a relatively new technique resulting from a combination of frontal affinity chromatography coupled with MS detection (FAC-MS) has extended the capabilities of MS in drug discovery and development. Its application in a broad range of biological systems, together with its label-free operation, relatively high throughput, ability to rank ligands and determine Kd, makes FAC-MS a universal tool enabling convenient and efficient screening in the identification of new potential drug leads. Here we will highlight FAC-MS screening studies and discuss where it can be applied in evaluating multiple protein-binding sites, protein-protein interactions and inactive proteins, and also in determining selectivity.