Back

Determination of the cellular target engagement by direct-to-biology Cellular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA)

Santhakumar, V.; Barsyte-Lovejoy, D.; Szewczyk, M.; Sarvatit, P.; Istayeva, A.; Batey, R.; Patel, D.

2026-03-02 cell biology
10.64898/2026.02.28.708721 bioRxiv
Show abstract

The direct-to-biology approach enables rapid, high-throughput evaluation of large compound libraries in biological assays, eliminating costly and time-consuming purification steps. This strategy has been widely used in the development of proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) to facilitate rapid linker optimization and the identification of active degraders from thousands of crude candidate compounds. Similarly, some other direct-to-biology biophysical assays have been utilized for the optimization of small-molecule ligands. However, a direct-to-biology strategy for evaluating cellular target engagement has not yet been demonstrated. Here, we extend this approach to the cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA). By systematically comparing crude reaction mixtures of reported DCAF11 covalent ligands with their corresponding purified analogues, we demonstrate that unpurified compounds can be directly evaluated in CETSA to assess cellular target engagement.

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

1
Nature Communications
4913 papers in training set
Top 15%
12.0%
2
Journal of the American Chemical Society
199 papers in training set
Top 0.5%
12.0%
3
Angewandte Chemie International Edition
81 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
12.0%
4
ACS Central Science
66 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
6.6%
5
RSC Chemical Biology
32 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
6.1%
6
Cell Chemical Biology
81 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
4.2%
50% of probability mass above
7
eLife
5422 papers in training set
Top 21%
4.2%
8
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2130 papers in training set
Top 17%
4.1%
9
ACS Chemical Biology
150 papers in training set
Top 0.5%
3.6%
10
Nature Chemical Biology
104 papers in training set
Top 0.8%
3.5%
11
Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
68 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
3.5%
12
ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
16 papers in training set
Top 0.2%
3.0%
13
Advanced Science
249 papers in training set
Top 7%
2.8%
14
Communications Chemistry
39 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
2.0%
15
Analytical Chemistry
205 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.8%
16
Nature Chemistry
34 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
1.2%
17
Journal of Biological Chemistry
641 papers in training set
Top 3%
0.9%
18
Communications Biology
886 papers in training set
Top 18%
0.9%
19
Science Advances
1098 papers in training set
Top 25%
0.9%
20
SLAS Discovery
25 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
0.9%
21
Nucleic Acids Research
1128 papers in training set
Top 17%
0.8%
22
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters
10 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
0.8%
23
mAbs
28 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
0.8%
24
PLOS ONE
4510 papers in training set
Top 72%
0.6%