Aplysqualenol A binds to the light chain of dynein type 1 (DYNLL1).

A bidirectional affinity system has been developed for the identification of cancer-related natural products and their biological targets. Aplysqualenol A is thus selectively identified as a ligand of the dynein light chain. The use of forward and reverse affinity methods suggests that both small-molecule isolation and target identification can be conducted using conventional molecular biological methods.