Direct Analysis from Phase-Separated Liquid Samples using ADE-OPI-MS: Applicability to High-Throughput Screening for Inhibitors of Diacylglycerol Acyltransferase 2

The primary goal of high-throughput screening (HTS) is to rapidly survey a broad collection of compounds, numbering from tens of thousands to millions of members, and identify those that modulate the activity of a therapeutic target of interest. For nearly two decades, mass spectrometry has been used as a label-free, direct-detection method for HTS and is widely acknowledged as being less susceptible to interferences than traditional optical techniques. Despite these advantages, the throughput of conventional MS-based platforms like RapidFire or parallel LC-MS, which typically acquire data at speeds of 6–30 s/sample, can still be limiting for large HTS campaigns. To overcome this bottleneck, the field has recently turned to chromatography-free approaches including MALDI-TOF-MS and acoustic droplet ejection-MS, both of which are capable of throughputs of 1 sample/second or faster. In keeping with these advances, we report here on our own characterization of an acoustic droplet ejection, open port interface (ADE-OPI)-MS system as a platform for HTS using the membrane-associated, lipid metabolizing enzyme diacylglycerol acyltransferase 2 (DGAT2) as a model system. We demonstrate for the first time that the platform is capable of ejecting droplets from phase-separated samples, allowing direct coupling of liquid–liquid extraction with OPI-MS analysis. By applying the platform to screen a 6400-member library, we further demonstrate that the ADE-OPI-MS assay is suitable for HTS and also performs comparably to LC-MS, but with an efficiency gain of >20-fold.