A method of computationally enhanced detection of chromatogram regions with apparent high relative agonist activity

An occasional but difficult problem arises in drug discovery during a chrom atographic analysis in which high background activity is associated with th e presence of most eluting molecular species. This makes the isolation of m aterial of high relative activity difficult. A computational method is show n that clarifies the identification of regions of the chromatogram of inter est. The data for bioactivity and absorbance are normalized to percent of m aximal response, filtered to raise very small or zero values to a minimal l evel, and the activity/absorbance ratio is plotted per fraction. The fracti ons with relatively high activity become evident. This technique is a helpf ul adjunct to existing graphical methods and provides an objective relation ship between the data sets. It is simple to implement with Visual Basic and spreadsheet data, making it widely accessible. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science I nc.