This document discusses chemical similarity search methods for identifying new drug candidates. It describes the typical drug discovery workflow involving searching large databases of chemical compounds for structures similar to known active molecules. The main methods discussed are substructure search, similarity search, molecular docking and QSAR. Popular databases mentioned for searching include PubChem, ZINC and BindingDB. Examples are given of using PubChem's chemical similarity search tool to find structures similar to the drug Warfarin.
2. Chemoinformatics
AIB
Chemoinformatics is an interface science aimed
primarily at discovering new chemical entries that will
ultimately result in the development of novel treatments
for unmet medical needs.
2
5. Hit Identification: What is Expected
Some Magic
Database of
Chemical
Compounds
(Millions of Cmpds)
??
AIB
Few Compounds
Ready for
Synthesis/Testing
Magic of Chemical Similarity
5
7. Chemical Search Methods
Substructure search
Similarity
Docking
QSAR
Three things should be kept in Mind:
1. Question
2. Model
3. Requirements
AIB
8. Substructure Search
AIB
Question: Which molecules in a database
contain the specified substructure?
Model: Compounds that contain this
substructure are likely to be active.
Query requires: 2D or 3D substructure
common to actives (pharmacophore in
3D).
8
9. Similarity Based Search
AIB
Question: Which molecules in a database
are similar to the query molecule(s)?
Model: Compounds globally similar in
structure to the query are likely to have a
similar activity.
Query requires: One or more active
molecules.
9
10. Docking Based Search
AIB
Question: Which molecules in a database
can fit into the binding site of a known
enzyme or receptor?
Model: Compounds that have a high
interaction score are likely to bind to the
enzyme.
Query requires: Atomic-level structure of
receptor (or model built from homolog).
10
11. QSAR Based Method
AIB
Question: Which molecules have the
highest predicted activity?
Model: Compounds with high predicted
activity are likely to be active.
Query requires: Activity data on enough
compounds to form QSAR.
11