A protocol for small molecular drug screening based on in-situ synthesis of ultrasmall fluorescent gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) using drug-loaded protein as template is presented. This method is simple to determine the binding affinity of drugs to a target protein by a visible fluorescent signal emitted from the protein-templated Au NCs.
Yu, Y., New, S. Y., Lin, J., Su, X., Tan, Y. N. A Rapid and Quantitative Fluorimetric Method for Protein-Targeting Small Molecule Drug Screening. J. Vis. Exp. (104), e53261, doi:10.3791/53261 (2015).