Considerations for the design and reporting of enzyme assays in high-throughput screening applications

Abstract

This review describes the key steps and methods which are used to develop enzyme assays suitable for high-throughput screening (HTS) applications. The goals of HTS enzyme assays are defined relative to lower-throughput bench top assays and important aspects which go into constructing robust and sensitive enzyme assays are described. Methods that have been applied to common enzyme classes are reviewed and pitfalls related to assay artifacts are discussed. We also suggest a reporting format to describe the steps in HTS enzyme assays.