Small-molecule microarrays as tools for facilitating chemical genomics: Recent advances

The identification of small molecule ligands for cellular proteins of biologically importance has not only provided new insights in biology, but has also provided organic chemists with the opportunity to create new synthetic molecules which efficiently regulate specific protein-protein interactions and biological processes. Small-molecule microarrays are recently developed as platforms to screen such small molecule ligands for proteins of interest. The small-molecule microarray technology is highly dependent on chemistry to immobilize small molecules on a variety of solid surfaces, and synthetic organic chemistry will continue to play a significant role in this field. This review covers the recent advances in the field with particular emphasis on the immobilization chemistry, as well as technical advances in the platform optimization and the successful applications of this platform.