Monitoring drug–serum protein interactions for early ADME prediction through Surface Plasmon Resonance technology

[Display omitted] •Bioavailability plays a crucial role in determining the therapeutic effect of drugs.•Interaction with serum proteins vastly influences distribution volumes.•Early assessment of pharmacokinetics can improve success rate during drug discovery.•Biosensors grant easy access to information on drug–serum protein interactions.•Surface plasmon resonance biosensing is suited for early ADME profiling. Many molecules fail to reach the market due to poor pharmacokinetic (PK) properties, rendering the potential drug virtually unavailable for the primary target despite efficient administration to the body. PK properties of endogenous and exogenous compounds in mammals are dependent, among other factors, on their ability to interact with serum proteins. The extent of binding can greatly influence their ADME (adsorption, distribution, metabolism and execration) profile. Reliable and cost-effective bioavailability studies, early in the drug discovery process, can lead to an improvement of the success rate for compounds entering clinical trials. Optical biosensors based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) detection emerged as an efficient approach to obtain large amounts of information about the binding of small molecules to serum proteins. Simple, automated and fast assays provide a good throughput, versatility and highly informative data output, rendering the methodology particularly suited for early screening. The ability to provide basic information on PK can be easily coupled to structure–activity relationship analysis. In this review, features of the technology and its employment for the study of serum protein–small molecule interactions are presented and discussed.