What Is High Throughput Screening? | Corning (2024)

FAQs

What is high-throughput screening in simple words? ›

High throughput screening (HTS) is the use of automated equipment to rapidly test thousands to millions of samples for biological activity at the model organism, cellular, pathway, or molecular level.

High throughput refers to the measure of network performance, specifically the time taken to complete a process. A system with high throughput is considered good as it can quickly execute tasks.

Explanation: High-throughput drug screening involves determining the interactions between various compounds and a disease. This technique allows researchers to quickly identify and target potentially useful compounds by screening thousands at once.

High throughput screening (HTS) is a popular approach to target validation as it allows the assaying of a large number of potential biological modulators against a chosen set of defined targets.

A network with low throughput and high latency struggles to send and process high data volume, which results in congestion and poor application performance. In contrast, a network with high throughput and low latency is responsive and efficient. Users experience improved performance and increased satisfaction.

The time and cost associated with each step vary with the complexity of the target and assay; however, the compound screening step typically takes from 1 week (for a focused screen of a set of 10,000 compounds) to 1–3 months (for HTS of 1 million compounds).

Examples of high-throughput systems include: E-commerce platforms handling thousands of transactions per second. Social media platforms processing millions of user requests per minute. Financial systems processing high-volume trades and transactions.

Throughput time refers to the total amount of time that it takes to run a particular process in its entirety from start to finish. For example, a manufacturer can measure how long it takes to produce a product, from initial customer order to sourcing raw materials to manufacturing to sale.

Using robotics, data processing/control software, liquid handling devices, and sensitive detectors, high-throughput screening allows a researcher to quickly conduct millions of chemical, genetic, or pharmacological tests.

HTS is highly efficient for initial target-based screening. At the same time, HCS is more suitable for secondary and tertiary screening phases, especially during the leading optimization process, and is also preferred when the objective is to research complex diseases such as cancer or neurodegenerative disorders.

What is the success rate of high throughput screening? ›

The hit rate in a typical HTS is relatively low, typically less than 1% in most assays,³ requiring large compound libraries to generate a sufficient number of hits for drug development programs to progress. The size of these libraries results in a high cost of screening as well as long lead times for campaigns.

Virtual screening, similar to HTS, relies upon assessing a large, diverse library of compounds. The difference is that the compounds in a virtual screening library are contained in databases rather than being physically assembled by the organisation conducting the screen.

All aspects of the screen, including data analysis, are tested. When the Z' and Z-factors are >0.5, HTS can proceed. The pilot set can be a focused library (e.g., drug set) or the first few plates of the desired screen set. A typical screen is run in 50 µl, at a final concentration of 10 µM compound, in 0.1% DMSO.

High Throughput Screening (HTS)

One example is the development of peptide substrates for the measurement of IgA1 protease activity in a 386-well microplate assay system (Choudary et al., 2013).

The aim of high throughput drug discovery is to test large compound collections for potentially active compounds ('hits') in order to allow further development of compounds for pre-clinical testing ('leads').

While sequencing information has traditionally been elucidated using a low throughput technique called Sanger sequencing, high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies are capable of sequencing multiple DNA molecules in parallel, enabling hundreds of millions of DNA molecules to be sequenced at a time.

HIV testing services (HTS) are the first step in the clinical cascade to ensure that people living with HIV (PLHIV) are diagnosed and linked to prevention, treatment, and care.

This usually means a simplification of sample handling, parallel manipulation of a large number of samples, speeding up all steps which include long waiting time or analysis time.