DTP Branches and Offices
Applications
COMPARE has become an integral part of the NCI's evaluation of newly screened compounds. Even though the mean graph of every compound tested by the NCI is inspected by eye, most newly screened compounds do not show sufficient pattern to warrant a COMPARE analysis. Those that exhibit a detectable pattern are analyzed with a version of the COMPARE program that uses the standard agent database. This database is small enough to permit an interactive analysis. Thus, it can be determined in a matter of seconds whether a compound acts by a mechanism of action similar to that of one of the standard agents.
Alternately, because compounds that affect specific molecular targets produce distinctive mean graph patterns, one can use COMPARE to search for new compounds heretofore unknown to have that action. Any compound can be used as a seed to search among all the agents that have been screened in the synthetic compound database for those that may influence the same target as the seed. For definitive confirmation of mechanism, laboratory studies would be required. Further, the seed can also be used to search the natural product extract database to identify crude extracts that may contain compounds affecting the target.