Drug molecules binding affinities

Binding affinity is used to characterize how strongly two molecules interact. Typically this will be a ligand and a receptor site, perhaps in a protein. Another common example would be a drug molecule binding to a receptor site somewhere in the brain. In simple cases where one drug molecule (D) binds to one receptor molecule (R) to form a complex (DR), the binding affinity can be described by the equilibrium constant ... 

Since lipophilic molecules have affinity for both the membrane lipid and the serum proteins, membrane retention is expected to decrease, by the extent of the relative lipophilicities of the drug molecules in membrane lipid versus serum proteins, and by the relative amounts of the two competitive-binding phases [see Eqs. (7.41)-(7.43)]. Generally, the serum proteins cannot extract all of the sample molecules from the phospholipid membrane phase at equilibrium. Thus, to measure permeability under sink conditions, it is still necessary to characterize the extent of membrane retention. Generally, this has been sidestepped in the reported literature. 

The selection of building blocks is based on information derived from, for example, computational chemistry, where potential virtual ligand molecules are modeled to fit the receptor-protein binding site. Combinatorial chemistry commences with a scaffold or framework to which additional groups are added to improve the binding affinity. Compounds are prepared and later screened using HTS. In this way, many compounds are tested within a short time frame to speed up drug discovery. 

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