Compound interaction screen on a photoactivatable cellulose membrane (CISCM) identifies drug targets

Here, we present a compound interaction screen on a photoactivatable cellulose membrane (CISCM) that enables target identification of several drugs in parallel. To this end, we use diazirine-based undirected photoaffinity labeling (PAL) to immobilize compounds on cellulose membranes. Functionalized membranes are then incubated with protein extract and specific targets are identified via quantitative affinity purification and mass spectrometry. CISCM reliably identifies known targets of natural products in less than three hours of analysis time per compound. In summary, we show that combining undirected photoimmobilization of compounds on cellulose with quantitative interaction proteomics provides an efficient means to identify the targets of natural products.