The Basic Difference between Drugs and Chemical Probes
Drugs:Clinical approved chemical substance, which is used to treat diseases and disorders.
Chemical Probes: A chemical substance, which is used to interrogate the unsolved biological problems in order to understand them.
Chemical Probes Applications: Biological target identification, target visualization, target validation, cellular pathway identification, and identification of off target effects.
Generally chemical probes consist three regions
 |
| Fig.1 Chemical Probe |
2). Spacer (or) Linker: which is generally connects, two units and also enables the cell permeability e.g. peptide chain, poly ethylene glycol chain.
3). Reporter tags: again 3 types based on chemical biology application
a). Fluorescent tag: which is generally report the biological information by visualization method e.g. Indocyanine green by fluorescent microscopy.
b). Radioactive tag: Which is reports the biological distribution of a chemical compound in a particular region e.g. cell or tissue by imaging systems such as PET, SPECT scans.
c). Affinity tag: which is generally used to isolate the particular targeted protein by Biotin-Avidin affinity chromatography.
Table 1: Difference between drug and chemical probe
| Drugs | Chemical probes |
|---|---|
Has to fulfill PK&PD | Not necessary |
Most of the times single purpose only | Multipurpose |
Treat to disease | Disease identification and also reveals nature of target |
Phenotype outcome is necessary | Not necessary |
Most of the time bind with target reversibly | Most of the time bind with target irreversibly (covalent inhibitor) |
Clinical trials essential | Not essential |
Not toxic but sometimes show side effects | Might be toxic because of covalent nature |
Clinical purpose | Biological investigation purpose |
For further reading please find some useful articles below:
The art of the chemical probe URL
Rethinking screening URL
Chemical probes for biological systems URL
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