Target Functional Annotation and ID

Functional analysis helps identify potential molecular targets and characterizes whether these targets can be used in the course of specific disease treatments. Ace Therapeutics' talented scientists provide global customers with unparalleled target function annotation and identification services for the development of ophthalmic products. This minimizes the risk of late failure in the small-molecule drug discovery pipeline.

Introduction

Analysis of ocular functionalomics data (especially biological pathways) is a powerful tool for discovering small-molecule targets. Potential drug targets have been identified at various molecular levels, including proteins/peptides, mRNAs, miRNAs, metabolites, cell signaling receptors, enzymes, structural proteins, and regulators such as protein kinases. In the conventional drug discovery process, whether a target is druggable, that is, whether the drug can interact with the target and affect its function in a satisfactory manner. This is a crucial factor that researchers must consider. Through functional analysis, it not only helps to identify potential molecular targets, but also can characterize whether these targets can be used in the treatment process of specific ocular diseases, minimizing the risk of drug failure at the late stage of the drug discovery pipeline, thus successfully discovering drug targets.

Fig. 1. A downstream functional analysis workflow for molecular target and biomarker discovery from omics data.(Hu ZZ, et al., 2011)

Services Overview

With in-depth biological knowledge of target biology, ophthalmic area specialism and collaborative experience at every stage of the small molecule drug discovery pipeline, Ace Therapeutics has successfully built an unparalleled, comprehensive target identification and validation platform. Our talented scientists provide global customers with high-quality target functional annotation and identification services by executing multiple analysis strategies, which can help accelerate your ophthalmic small molecule targeted drug discovery program.

Our functional annotation and identification services team is comprised of experienced scientists, many of whom have decades of experience in ophthalmic drug discovery research. Through our functional analysis services, we can help you screen small molecules for novel compounds with a range of project-specific properties.

Explore Our Capabilities

Ace Therapeutics' broad in-house capabilities for small molecule drug discovery, complemented by cutting-edge technology platforms and supported by our deep drug discovery expertise, allow us to add value to your drug discovery program. Our functional annotation and ID capabilities in the field of drug discovery include but are not limited to.

Omics-Based Functional Analysis

Target-based drug discovery is the approach most commonly used by the pharmaceutical industry to find new drugs, in which libraries of compounds are screened for binding or activity to known protein and gene targets. Ace Therapeutics has a variety of bioinformatics tools for functional analysis of omics data based on gene and protein annotations, including GO terms, pathways, keywords, sequence features and families. Our scientists use powerful bioinformatics tools to analyze differential patterns of ocular gene or protein expression and search for potential molecular targets.

Target Functional Annotation and ID

Digital Imaging-Based Functional Analysis

Digital imaging is a technique for producing images that plays a vital role in functional analysis for target identification and verification. Typically, when creating digital imaging products, cells are treated with gene knockouts, antisense technology, or RNA interference (RNAi). When targeted genes are deleted or disrupted, their expression ceases, affecting the shape of the cell. Therefore, changes in morphology can be characterized by digital imaging techniques. During this process, changes in target location, function, and virulence can be observed by various imaging techniques. Ace Therapeutics offers a variety of methods for digital imaging, including electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and atomic force microscopy, and so on.

Metabolic Pathways-Based Functional Analysis

Metabolic pathway analysis is a part of omics analysis. It is discovering and analyzing important pathways in metabolic networks to assess intrinsic network properties in biochemical reaction networks. Ace Therapeutics' scientists used bioinformatics techniques to analyze differences in ocular metabolites in responsive and non-responsive groups to identify potential molecular targets.

Target Functional Annotation and ID

Target Localization Analysis

Target localization is the process of determining the location of a drug target in a cell. Since localization is closely related to biological function, studying target localization is crucial for systems biology and target understanding. Ace Therapeutics provides our clients with unparalleled drug target localization services utilizing a variety of technologies. These technologies include fluorescent protein (FP) fusion techniques, thaw-mount and dry-mount techniques and gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) technology.

Ace Therapeutics' target functional annotation and ID services are an integral part of the comprehensive small-molecule drug discovery process. Our talented scientists can enhance your drug discovery project at any stage. You will benefit from our high-quality collaborative solutions so that your small-molecule drug discovery program has the highest chance of success. In addition, Ace Therapeutics offers various other small-molecule drug discovery services. If you are interested in our services or need more detailed information, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to working with you.

Reference

Hu ZZ, Huang H, Wu CH, et al. Omics-based molecular target and biomarker identification. Methods Mol Biol. 2011;719:547-71.

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