The solute carrier (SLC) transporter family is the largest group of metabolite transport proteins in the body, accounting for about 2% of known human coding genes. SLC transporters move metabolites across cell membranes, for the precise control of metabolite levels within cells, tissues and organs. Despite their central role in human physiology, fewer than 20 of the 450 SLC transporters are targeted by approved drugs — underscoring a massive untapped therapeutic opportunity. Despite their immense promise, SLCs are often considered to be intractable targets for hit generation and lead discovery, due to the difficulty of working with these multipass transmembrane proteins and the lack of pre-defined assay technologies to enable their study. To address this challenge, Jnana has built a proprietary ligand discovery platform called Reactive Affinity Probe Interaction Discovery (RAPID) that is carried out in live cells, where SLCs are present in their native membrane environment. RAPID is a ‘plug-and-play’ technology that identifies small-molecule binders irrespective of the fold or function of the target protein, delivering high quality, chemical matter for targets of interest. RAPID is ideally suited for SLC transporters which are highly diverse based on structure and cellular location, often difficult to express and purify, are not readily amenable to biophysical methods, and may have no known ligands. Jnana is using its RAPID platform to advance drug-discovery programs in our internal pipeline and in collaborations with biopharma partners to systematically target SLC transporters and develop small molecule therapeutics to treat a wide range of diseases.

RAPID - a high-throughput, cell-based drug discovery platform for SLC transporters and other difficult to drug targets

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.