Golgi Recruitment Assay for Visualizing Small-Molecule Ligand–target Engagement in Cells

The development of methods that allow detection of ligand–target engagement in cells is an important challenge in chemical biology and drug discovery. Here, we present a Golgi recruitment (G-REC) assay in which the ligand binding to the target protein can be visualized as Golgi-localized fluorescence signals. We show that the G-REC assay is applicable to the detection of various ligand–target interactions, ligand affinity comparison among distinct protein isoforms, and the monitoring of unmodified drug–target engagement in cells.