A Mini Review of Promiscuous Inhibitors, Nonspecific Inhibition and Detergent Effect

Abstract

High-throughput screening is widely employed in early stage of drug discovery for identification of novel leads. While high-throughput screening is able to search a large library of chemical compounds in a relative short period of time, it is susceptible to false-positive hits. In this mini review, we summarized the known attributes of promiscuous inhibitors and the mechanism of their inhibition effect, as well as the factors affecting its potency. Next, we reviewed the recent studies of the detergent effects on the promiscuous inhibitors and discussed the potential application to reduce false-positive signals.