Large-scale prediction and testing of drug activity on side-effect targets

Analysis of chemical and biological features yields mechanistic insights into drug side effects

Side effects (SEs) are the unintended consequence of therapeutic treatments, but they can also be seen as valuable readouts of drug effects, resulting from the perturbation of biological systems by chemical compounds. Unfortunately, biology and chemistry are often considered separately, leading to incomplete models unable to provide a unified view of SEs. Here, we investigate the molecular bases of over 1,600 SEs by navigating both chemical and biological spaces. We identified characteristic molecular traits for 1,162 SEs, 38% of which can be explained using solely biological arguments, and only 6% are exclusively associated with the chemistry of the compounds, implying that the drug action is somewhat unspecific. Overall, we provide mechanistic insights for most SEs and emphasize the need to blend biology and chemistry to surpass intricate phenomena not captured in the molecular biology view.

Identification of Similar Binding Sites to Detect Distant Polypharmacology

The ability of small molecules to interact with multiple proteins is referred to as polypharmacology. This property is often linked to the therapeutic action of drugs but it is known also to be responsible for many of their side effects. Because of its importance, the development of computational methods that can predict drug polypharmacology has become an important line of research that led recently to the identification of many novel targets for known drugs. Nowadays, the majority of these methods are based on measuring the similarity of a query molecule against the hundreds of thousands of molecules for which pharmacological data on thousands of proteins are available in public sources. However, similarity-based methods are inherently biased by the chemical coverage offered by the active molecules present in those public repositories, which limits significantly their capacity to predict interactions with proteins structurally and functionally unrelated to any of the already known targets for drugs. It is in this respect that structure-based methods aiming at identifying similar binding sites may offer an alternative complementary means to ligand-based methods for detecting distant polypharmacology. The different existing approaches to binding site detection, representation, comparison, and fragmentation are reviewed and recent successful applications presented.

DGIdb: mining the druggable genome

The Drug-Gene Interaction database (DGIdb) mines existing resources that generate hypotheses about how mutated genes might be targeted therapeutically or prioritized for drug development. It provides an interface for searching lists of genes against a compendium of drug-gene interactions and potentially druggable genes. DGIdb can be accessed at dgidb.org.

Systems biology in drug discovery and development

The complexity of human biology makes it challenging to develop safe and effective new medicines. Systems biology omics-based efforts have led to an explosion of high-throughput data and focus is now shifting to the integration of diverse data types to connect molecular and pathway information to predict disease outcomes. Better models of human disease biology, including more integrated network-based models that can accommodate multiple omics data types, as well as more relevant experimental systems, will help predict drug effects in patients, enabling personalized medicine, improvement of the success rate of new drugs in the clinic, and the finding of new uses for existing drugs.

Advanced systems biology methods in drug discovery and translational biomedicine

Systems biology is in an exponential development stage in recent years and has been widely utilized in biomedicine to better understand the molecular basis of human disease and the mechanism of drug action. Here, we discuss the fundamental concept of systems biology and its two computational methods that have been commonly used, that is, network analysis and dynamical modeling. The applications of systems biology in elucidating human disease are highlighted, consisting of human disease networks, treatment response prediction, investigation of disease mechanisms, and disease-associated gene prediction. In addition, important advances in drug discovery, to which systems biology makes significant contributions, are discussed, including drug-target networks, prediction of drug-target interactions, investigation of drug adverse effects, drug repositioning, and drug combination prediction. The systems biology methods and applications covered in this review provide a framework for addressing disease mechanism and approaching drug discovery, which will facilitate the translation of research findings into clinical benefits such as novel biomarkers and promising therapies.

Common non-epigenetic drugs as epigenetic modulators

Epigenetic effects are exerted by a variety of factors and evidence increases that common drugs such as opioids, cannabinoids, valproic acid, or cytostatics may induce alterations in DNA methylation patterns or histone conformations. These effects occur via chemical structural interactions with epigenetic enzymes, through interactions with DNA repair mechanisms. Computational predictions indicate that one-twentieth of all drugs might potentially interact with human histone deacetylase, which was prospectively experimentally verified for the compound with the highest predicted interaction probability. These epigenetic effects add to wanted and unwanted drug effects, contributing to mechanisms of drug resistance or disease-related and unrelated phenotypes. Because epigenetic changes might be transmitted to offspring, the need for reliable and cost-effective epigenetic screening tools becomes acute.

Proteoliposomes as tool for assaying membrane transporter functions and interactions with xenobiotics

Proteoliposomes represent a suitable and up to date tool for studying membrane transporters which physiologically mediate absorption, excretion, trafficking and reabsorption of nutrients and metabolites. Using recently developed reconstitution strategies, transporters can be inserted in artificial bilayers with the same orientation as in the cell membranes and in the absence of other interfering molecular systems. These methodologies are very suitable for studying kinetic parameters and molecular mechanisms. After the first applications on mitochondrial transporters, in the last decade, proteoliposomes obtained with optimized methodologies have been used for studying plasma membrane transporters and defining their functional and kinetic properties and structure/function relationships. A lot of information has been obtained which has clarified and completed the knowledge on several transporters among which the OCTN sub-family members, transporters for neutral amino acid, B0AT1 and ASCT2, and others. Transporters can mediate absorption of substrate-like derivatives or drugs, improving their bioavailability or can interact with these compounds or other xenobiotics, leading to side/toxic effects. Therefore, proteoliposomes have recently been used for studying the interaction of some plasma membrane and mitochondrial transporters with toxic compounds, such as mercurials, H₂O₂ and some drugs. Several mechanisms have been defined and in some cases the amino acid residues responsible for the interaction have been identified. The data obtained indicate proteoliposomes as a novel and potentially important tool in drug discovery.

Shaping the interaction landscape of bioactive molecules

MOTIVATION

Most bioactive molecules perform their action by interacting with proteins or other macromolecules. However, for a significant fraction of them, the primary target remains unknown. In addition, the majority of bioactive molecules have more than one target, many of which are poorly characterized. Computational predictions of bioactive molecule targets based on similarity with known ligands are powerful to narrow down the number of potential targets and to rationalize side effects of known molecules.

RESULTS

Using a reference set of 224 412 molecules active on 1700 human proteins, we show that accurate target prediction can be achieved by combining different measures of chemical similarity based on both chemical structure and molecular shape. Our results indicate that the combined approach is especially efficient when no ligand with the same scaffold or from the same chemical series has yet been discovered. We also observe that different combinations of similarity measures are optimal for different molecular properties, such as the number of heavy atoms. This further highlights the importance of considering different classes of similarity measures between new molecules and known ligands to accurately predict their targets.

Characterization of drug-induced transcriptional modules: towards drug repositioning and functional understanding

Drug-induced transcriptional modules (biclusters) were identified and annotated in three human cell lines and rat liver. These were used to assess conservation across systems and to infer and experimentally validate novel drug effects and gene functions.

Biclustering of drug-induced gene expression profiles resulted in modules of drugs and genes, which were enriched in both drug and gene annotations.

Identifying drug-induced transcriptional modules separately in three human cell lines and rat liver allows assessment of their conservation across model systems. About 70% of modules are conserved across cell lines, a lower bound of 15% was estimated for their conservation across organisms, and between the in vitro and in vivo systems.

Drug-induced transcriptional modules can predict novel gene functions. A conserved module associated with (chole)sterol metabolism revealed novel regulators of cellular cholesterol homeostasis; 10 of them were validated in functional imaging assays.

Analysis of drugs clustered into modules can give new insights into their mechanisms of action and provide leads for drug repositioning. We predicted and experimentally validated novel cell cycle inhibitors and modulators of PPARγ, estrogen and adrenergic receptors, with potential for developing new therapies against diabetes and cancer.

In pharmacology, it is crucial to understand the complex biological responses that drugs elicit in the human organism and how well they can be inferred from model organisms. We therefore identified a large set of drug-induced transcriptional modules from genome-wide microarray data of drug-treated human cell lines and rat liver, and first characterized their conservation. Over 70% of these modules were common for multiple cell lines and 15% were conserved between the human in vitro and the rat in vivo system. We then illustrate the utility of conserved and cell-type-specific drug-induced modules by predicting and experimentally validating (i) gene functions, e.g., 10 novel regulators of cellular cholesterol homeostasis and (ii) new mechanisms of action for existing drugs, thereby providing a starting point for drug repositioning, e.g., novel cell cycle inhibitors and new modulators of α-adrenergic receptor, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor and estrogen receptor. Taken together, the identified modules reveal the conservation of transcriptional responses towards drugs across cell types and organisms, and improve our understanding of both the molecular basis of drug action and human biology.

Systematic identification of proteins that elicit drug side effects

Side effect similarities of drugs have recently been employed to predict new drug targets, and networks of side effects and targets have been used to better understand the mechanism of action of drugs. Here, we report a large-scale analysis to systematically predict and characterize proteins that cause drug side effects. We integrated phenotypic data obtained during clinical trials with known drug-target relations to identify overrepresented protein-side effect combinations. Using independent data, we confirm that most of these overrepresentations point to proteins which, when perturbed, cause side effects. Of 1428 side effects studied, 732 were predicted to be predominantly caused by individual proteins, at least 137 of them backed by existing pharmacological or phenotypic data. We prove this concept in vivo by confirming our prediction that activation of the serotonin 7 receptor (HTR7) is responsible for hyperesthesia in mice, which, in turn, can be prevented by a drug that selectively inhibits HTR7. Taken together, we show that a large fraction of complex drug side effects are mediated by individual proteins and create a reference for such relations.

Fusion of nonclinical and clinical data to predict human drug safety

Adverse drug reactions continue to be a major cause of morbidity in both patients receiving therapeutics and in drug R&D programs. Predicting and possibly eliminating these adverse events remains a high priority in industry, government agencies and healthcare systems. With small molecule candidates, the fusion of nonclinical and clinical data is essential in establishing an overall system that creates a true translational science approach. Several new advances are taking place that attempt to create a 'patient context' mechanism early in drug research and development and ultimately into the marketplace. This 'life-cycle' approach has as its core the development of human-oriented, nonclinical end points and the incorporation of clinical knowledge at the drug design stage. The next 5 years should witness an explosion of what the author views as druggable and safe chemical space, pharmacosafety molecular targets and the most important aspect, an understanding of unique susceptibilities in patients developing adverse drug reactions. Our current knowledge of clinical safety relies completely on pharmacovigilance data from approved and marketed drugs, with a few exceptions of drugs failing in clinical trials. Massive data repositories now and soon to be available via cloud computing should stimulate a major effort in expanding our view of clinical drug safety and its incorporation into early drug research and development.

Metrics other than potency reveal systematic variation in responses to cancer drugs

Large-scale analysis of cellular response to anticancer drugs typically focuses on variation in potency (half-maximum inhibitory concentration, (IC50)), assuming that it is the most important difference between effective and ineffective drugs or sensitive and resistant cells. We took a multiparametric approach involving analysis of the slope of the dose-response curve, the area under the curve and the maximum effect (Emax). We found that some of these parameters vary systematically with cell line and others with drug class. For cell-cycle inhibitors, Emax often but not always correlated with cell proliferation rate. For drugs targeting the Akt/PI3K/mTOR pathway, dose-response curves were unusually shallow. Classical pharmacology has no ready explanation for this phenomenon, but single-cell analysis showed that it correlated with significant and heritable cell-to-cell variability in the extent of target inhibition. We conclude that parameters other than potency should be considered in the comparative analysis of drug response, particularly at clinically relevant concentrations near and above the IC50.

Exploring stereoselectivity of 3-indolyl cyclopent[b]indoles: a parallel synthesis and anti-EGFR study on human cancer cells

We synthesized a series of novel 3-indolyl cyclopent[b]indoles by trifluoroacetic acid mediated cyclodimerizations. The reaction showed high stereoselectivity and moderate to good yields. The influencing factors for stereoselectivity were systematically analyzed and a stepwise reaction mechanism was proposed. The cell viability tests in two colon and two lung cancer cell lines indicated the 1-benzyl-2-phenyl-group in 3-indolyl cyclopent[b]indoles was critical for the observed lower IC₅₀s in these compounds. Western blot analysis demonstrated that the compound inhibited the expression and phosphorylation of EGFR through altered HSP90 expression. Further cell cycle and cell cycle check point protein analyses showed expected anti-cellular proliferation and cell cycle arresting properties associated with suppressed EGFR expression and phosphorylation. These data revealed a novel molecular mechanism explaining the observed cytotoxicities for these compounds.

Computational profiling of bioactive compounds using a target-dependent composite workflow

Computational target fishing is a chemoinformatic method aimed at determining main and secondary targets of bioactive compounds in order to explain their mechanism of action, anticipate potential side effects, or repurpose existing drugs for novel therapeutic indications. Many existing successes in this area have been based on a use of a single computational method to estimate potentially new target-ligand associations. We herewith present an automated workflow using several methods to optimally browse target-ligand space according to existing knowledge on either ligand and target space under investigation. The protocol uses four ligand-based (SVM classification, SVR affinity prediction, nearest neighbors interpolation, shape similarity) and two structure-based approaches (docking, protein-ligand pharmacophore match) in series, according to well-defined ligand and target property checks. The workflow was remarkably accurate (72%) in identifying the main target of 189 clinical candidates and proposed two novel off-targets which could be experimentally validated. Rolofylline, an adenosine A1 receptor antagonist, was confirmed to inhibit phosphodiesterase 5 with a moderate affinity (IC50 = 13.8 μM). More interestingly, we describe a strong binding (IC50 = 142 nM) of a claimed selective phosphodiesterase 10 A inhibitor (PF-2545920) with the cysteinyl leukotriene type 1 G protein-coupled receptor.

Steering target selectivity and potency by fragment-based de novo drug design

Kinase inhibitors: Ligand-based de novo design is validated as a viable technology for rapidly generating innovative compounds possessing the desired biochemical profile. The study discloses the discovery of the most selective vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) kinase inhibitor (right in scheme) known to date as prime lead for antiangiogenic drug development.

Structure-efficiency relationship of [1,2,4]triazol-3-ylamines as novel nicotinamide isosteres that inhibit tankyrases

Tankyrases 1 and 2 are members of the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) family of enzymes that modulate Wnt pathway signaling. While amide- and lactam-based nicotinamide mimetics that inhibit tankyrase activity, such as XAV939, are well-known, herein we report the discovery and evaluation of a novel nicotinamide isostere that demonstrates selectivity over other PARP family members. We demonstrate the utilization of lipophilic efficiency-based structure-efficiency relationships (SER) to rapidly drive the evaluation of this series. These efforts led to a series of selective, cell-active compounds with solubility, physicochemical, and in vitro properties suitable for further optimization.

The effect of network biology on drug toxicology

INTRODUCTION

The high failure rate of drug candidates due to toxicity, during clinical trials, is a critical issue in drug discovery. Network biology has become a promising approach, in this regard, using the increasingly large amount of biological and chemical data available and combining it with bioinformatics. With this approach, the assessment of chemical safety can be done across multiple scales of complexity from molecular to cellular and system levels in human health. Network biology can be used at several levels of complexity.

AREAS COVERED

This review describes the strengths and limitations of network biology. The authors specifically assess this approach across different biological scales when it is applied to toxicity.

EXPERT OPINION

There has been much progress made with the amount of data that is generated by various omics technologies. With this large amount of useful data, network biology has the opportunity to contribute to a better understanding of a drug's safety profile. The authors believe that considering a drug action and protein's function in a global physiological environment may benefit our understanding of the impact some chemicals have on human health and toxicity. The next step for network biology will be to better integrate differential and quantitative data.

Accidental interaction between PDZ domains and diclofenac revealed by NMR-assisted virtual screening

In silico approaches have become indispensable for drug discovery as well as drug repositioning and adverse effect prediction. We have developed the eF-seek program to predict protein–ligand interactions based on the surface structure of proteins using a clique search algorithm. We have also developed a special protein structure prediction pipeline and accumulated predicted 3D models in the Structural Atlas of the Human Genome (SAHG) database. Using this database, genome-wide prediction of non-peptide ligands for proteins in the human genome was performed, and a subset of predicted interactions including 14 PDZ domains was then confirmed by NMR titration. Surprisingly, diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, was found to be a non-peptide PDZ domain ligand, which bound to 5 of 15 tested PDZ domains. The critical residues for the PDZ–diclofenac interaction were also determined. Pharmacological implications of the accidental PDZ–diclofenac interaction are further discussed.

In silico target predictions: defining a benchmarking data set and comparison of performance of the multiclass Naïve Bayes and Parzen-Rosenblatt window

In this study, two probabilistic machine-learning algorithms were compared for in silico target prediction of bioactive molecules, namely the well-established Laplacian-modified Naïve Bayes classifier (NB) and the more recently introduced (to Cheminformatics) Parzen-Rosenblatt Window. Both classifiers were trained in conjunction with circular fingerprints on a large data set of bioactive compounds extracted from ChEMBL, covering 894 human protein targets with more than 155,000 ligand-protein pairs. This data set is also provided as a benchmark data set for future target prediction methods due to its size as well as the number of bioactivity classes it contains. In addition to evaluating the methods, different performance measures were explored. This is not as straightforward as in binary classification settings, due to the number of classes, the possibility of multiple class memberships, and the need to translate model scores into "yes/no" predictions for assessing model performance. Both algorithms achieved a recall of correct targets that exceeds 80% in the top 1% of predictions. Performance depends significantly on the underlying diversity and size of a given class of bioactive compounds, with small classes and low structural similarity affecting both algorithms to different degrees. When tested on an external test set extracted from WOMBAT covering more than 500 targets by excluding all compounds with Tanimoto similarity above 0.8 to compounds from the ChEMBL data set, the current methodologies achieved a recall of 63.3% and 66.6% among the top 1% for Naïve Bayes and Parzen-Rosenblatt Window, respectively. While those numbers seem to indicate lower performance, they are also more realistic for settings where protein targets need to be established for novel chemical substances.

Monitoring drug target engagement in cells and tissues using the cellular thermal shift assay

The efficacy of therapeutics is dependent on a drug binding to its cognate target. Optimization of target engagement by drugs in cells is often challenging, because drug binding cannot be monitored inside cells. We have developed a method for evaluating drug binding to target proteins in cells and tissue samples. This cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA) is based on the biophysical principle of ligand-induced thermal stabilization of target proteins. Using this assay, we validated drug binding for a set of important clinical targets and monitored processes of drug transport and activation, off-target effects and drug resistance in cancer cell lines, as well as drug distribution in tissues. CETSA is likely to become a valuable tool for the validation and optimization of drug target engagement.

Target essentiality and centrality characterize drug side effects

To investigate factors contributing to drug side effects, we systematically examine relationships between 4,199 side effects associated with 996 drugs and their 647 human protein targets. We find that it is the number of essential targets, not the number of total targets, that determines the side effects of corresponding drugs. Furthermore, within the context of a three-dimensional interaction network with atomic-resolution interaction interfaces, we find that drugs causing more side effects are also characterized by high degree and betweenness of their targets and highly shared interaction interfaces on these targets. Our findings suggest that both essentiality and centrality of a drug target are key factors contributing to side effects and should be taken into consideration in rational drug design.

The ultimate goal of medical research is to develop effective treatments for disease with minimal side effects. Currently, about 20% of drug candidates failed at clinical trial phases II and III due to safety issues. Therefore, understanding the determining factors of drug side effects is of paramount importance to human health and the pharmaceutical industry. Here, we present the first systematic study to uncover key factors leading to drug side effects within the framework of the human protein interactome network. Our results show that it is the number of essential targets, not the number of total targets, of a drug that determines the occurrence of its side effects. Furthermore, we find that the centrality, both degree and betweenness, of the drug targets is also an important determining factor of drug side effects. Our findings will shed light on new factors to be incorporated into the drug development pipeline.

Pharmacophore Alignment Search Tool (PhAST): Significance Assessment of Chemical Similarity

Previously, we proposed a ligand-based virtual screening technique (PhAST) based on global alignment of linearized interaction patterns. Here, we applied techniques developed for similarity assessment in local sequence alignments to our method resulting in p-values for chemical similarity. We compared two sampling strategies, a simple sampling strategy and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, and investigated the similarity of sampled distributions to Gaussian, Gumbel, modified Gumbel, and Gamma distributions. The Gumbel distribution with a Gaussian correction term was identified as the most similar to the observed empirical distributions. These techniques were applied in retrospective screenings on a drug-like dataset. Obtained p-values were adjusted to the size of the screening library with four different methods. Evaluation of E-value thresholds corroborated the Bonferroni correction as a preferred means to identify significant chemical similarity with PhAST. An online version of PhAST with significance estimation is available at http://modlab-cadd.ethz.ch/.

High-resolution view of compound promiscuity

Compound promiscuity is defined as the ability of a small molecule to specifically interact with multiple biological targets. So-defined promiscuity is relevant for drug discovery because it provides the molecular basis of polypharmacology, which is increasingly implicated in the therapeutic efficacy of drugs. Recent studies have analyzed different aspects of compound promiscuity on the basis of currently available activity data. In this commentary, we present take-home messages from these studies augmented with new results to generate a detailed picture of compound promiscuity that might serve as a reference for further discussions and research activities.

Predicting the protein targets for athletic performance-enhancing substances

Background

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) publishes the Prohibited List, a manually compiled international standard of substances and methods prohibited in-competition, out-of-competition and in particular sports. It would be ideal to be able to identify all substances that have one or more performance-enhancing pharmacological actions in an automated, fast and cost effective way. Here, we use experimental data derived from the ChEMBL database (~7,000,000 activity records for 1,300,000 compounds) to build a database model that takes into account both structure and experimental information, and use this database to predict both on-target and off-target interactions between these molecules and targets relevant to doping in sport.

Results

The ChEMBL database was screened and eight well populated categories of activities (K_i, K_d, EC50, ED50, activity, potency, inhibition and IC50) were used for a rule-based filtering process to define the labels “active” or “inactive”. The “active” compounds for each of the ChEMBL families were thereby defined and these populated our bioactivity-based filtered families. A structure-based clustering step was subsequently performed in order to split families with more than one distinct chemical scaffold. This produced refined families, whose members share both a common chemical scaffold and bioactivity against a common target in ChEMBL.

Conclusions

We have used the Parzen-Rosenblatt machine learning approach to test whether compounds in ChEMBL can be correctly predicted to belong to their appropriate refined families. Validation tests using the refined families gave a significant increase in predictivity compared with the filtered or with the original families. Out of 61,660 queries in our Monte Carlo cross-validation, belonging to 19,639 refined families, 41,300 (66.98%) had the parent family as the top prediction and 53,797 (87.25%) had the parent family in the top four hits. Having thus validated our approach, we used it to identify the protein targets associated with the WADA prohibited classes. For compounds where we do not have experimental data, we use their computed patterns of interaction with protein targets to make predictions of bioactivity. We hope that other groups will test these predictions experimentally in the future.

A safe lithium mimetic for bipolar disorder

Lithium is the most effective mood stabilizer for the treatment of bipolar disorder, but it is toxic at only twice the therapeutic dosage and has many undesirable side effects. It is likely that a small molecule could be found with lithium-like efficacy but without toxicity through target-based drug discovery; however, lithium’s therapeutic target remains equivocal. Inositol monophosphatase is a possible target but no bioavailable inhibitors exist. Here we report that the antioxidant ebselen inhibits inositol monophosphatase and induces lithium-like effects on mouse behaviour, which are reversed with inositol, consistent with a mechanism involving inhibition of inositol recycling. Ebselen is part of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Collection, a chemical library of bioavailable drugs considered clinically safe but without proven use. Therefore, ebselen represents a lithium mimetic with the potential both to validate inositol monophosphatase inhibition as a treatment for bipolar disorder and to serve as a treatment itself.

Profiling 976 ToxCast chemicals across 331 enzymatic and receptor signaling assays

Understanding potential health risks is a significant challenge due to the large numbers of diverse chemicals with poorly characterized exposures and mechanisms of toxicities. The present study analyzes 976 chemicals (including failed pharmaceuticals, alternative plasticizers, food additives, and pesticides) in Phases I and II of the U.S. EPA's ToxCast project across 331 cell-free enzymatic and ligand-binding high-throughput screening (HTS) assays. Half-maximal activity concentrations (AC50) were identified for 729 chemicals in 256 assays (7,135 chemical-assay pairs). Some of the most commonly affected assays were CYPs (CYP2C9 and CYP2C19), transporters (mitochondrial TSPO, norepinephrine, and dopaminergic), and GPCRs (aminergic). Heavy metals, surfactants, and dithiocarbamate fungicides showed promiscuous but distinctly different patterns of activity, whereas many of the pharmaceutical compounds showed promiscuous activity across GPCRs. Literature analysis confirmed >50% of the activities for the most potent chemical-assay pairs (54) but also revealed 10 missed interactions. Twenty-two chemicals with known estrogenic activity were correctly identified for the majority (77%), missing only the weaker interactions. In many cases, novel findings for previously unreported chemical-target combinations clustered with known chemical-target interactions. Results from this large inventory of chemical-biological interactions can inform read-across methods as well as link potential targets to molecular initiating events in adverse outcome pathways for diverse toxicities.

Profiling 976 ToxCast chemicals across 331 enzymatic and receptor signaling assays

Understanding potential health risks is a significant challenge due to the large numbers of diverse chemicals with poorly characterized exposures and mechanisms of toxicities. The present study analyzes 976 chemicals (including failed pharmaceuticals, alternative plasticizers, food additives, and pesticides) in Phases I and II of the U.S. EPA's ToxCast project across 331 cell-free enzymatic and ligand-binding high-throughput screening (HTS) assays. Half-maximal activity concentrations (AC50) were identified for 729 chemicals in 256 assays (7,135 chemical-assay pairs). Some of the most commonly affected assays were CYPs (CYP2C9 and CYP2C19), transporters (mitochondrial TSPO, norepinephrine, and dopaminergic), and GPCRs (aminergic). Heavy metals, surfactants, and dithiocarbamate fungicides showed promiscuous but distinctly different patterns of activity, whereas many of the pharmaceutical compounds showed promiscuous activity across GPCRs. Literature analysis confirmed >50% of the activities for the most potent chemical-assay pairs (54) but also revealed 10 missed interactions. Twenty-two chemicals with known estrogenic activity were correctly identified for the majority (77%), missing only the weaker interactions. In many cases, novel findings for previously unreported chemical-target combinations clustered with known chemical-target interactions. Results from this large inventory of chemical-biological interactions can inform read-across methods as well as link potential targets to molecular initiating events in adverse outcome pathways for diverse toxicities.

OCTN cation transporters in health and disease: role as drug targets and assay development

The three members of the organic cation transporter novel subfamily are known to be involved in interactions with xenobiotic compounds. These proteins are characterized by 12 transmembrane segments connected by nine short loops and two large hydrophilic loops. It has been recently pointed out that acetylcholine is a physiological substrate of OCTN1. Its transport could be involved in nonneuronal cholinergic functions. OCTN2 maintains the carnitine homeostasis, resulting from intestinal absorption, distribution to tissues, and renal excretion/reabsorption. OCTN3, identified only in mouse, mediates also carnitine transport. OCTN1 and OCTN2 are associated with several pathologies, such as inflammatory bowel disease, primary carnitine deficiency, diabetes, neurological disorders, and cancer, thus representing useful pharmacological targets. The function and interaction with drugs of OCTNs have been studied in intact cell systems and in proteoliposomes. The latter experimental model enables reduced interference from other transporters or enzyme pathways. Using proteoliposomes, the molecular bases of toxicity of some drugs have recently been revealed. Therefore, proteoliposomes represent a promising experimental tool suitable for large-scale molecular screening of interactions of OCTNs with chemicals regarding human health.

Structure and dynamics of molecular networks: a novel paradigm of drug discovery: a comprehensive review

Despite considerable progress in genome- and proteome-based high-throughput screening methods and in rational drug design, the increase in approved drugs in the past decade did not match the increase of drug development costs. Network description and analysis not only give a systems-level understanding of drug action and disease complexity, but can also help to improve the efficiency of drug design. We give a comprehensive assessment of the analytical tools of network topology and dynamics. The state-of-the-art use of chemical similarity, protein structure, protein-protein interaction, signaling, genetic interaction and metabolic networks in the discovery of drug targets is summarized. We propose that network targeting follows two basic strategies. The "central hit strategy" selectively targets central nodes/edges of the flexible networks of infectious agents or cancer cells to kill them. The "network influence strategy" works against other diseases, where an efficient reconfiguration of rigid networks needs to be achieved by targeting the neighbors of central nodes/edges. It is shown how network techniques can help in the identification of single-target, edgetic, multi-target and allo-network drug target candidates. We review the recent boom in network methods helping hit identification, lead selection optimizing drug efficacy, as well as minimizing side-effects and drug toxicity. Successful network-based drug development strategies are shown through the examples of infections, cancer, metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Summarizing >1200 references we suggest an optimized protocol of network-aided drug development, and provide a list of systems-level hallmarks of drug quality. Finally, we highlight network-related drug development trends helping to achieve these hallmarks by a cohesive, global approach.

The utility of modeling and simulation in drug development and regulatory review

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has identified innovation in clinical evaluations as a major scientific priority area. This paper provides case studies and updates to describe the efforts by the FDA's Office of Clinical Pharmacology in its development and application of regulatory science, focusing on modeling and simulation. Key issues and challenges are identified that need to be addressed to promote the uptake of modeling and simulation approaches in drug regulation. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. 102:2912-2923, 2013.

Cheminformatics at the interface of medicinal chemistry and proteomics

Multiple factors have to be optimized in the course of a drug discovery project. Traditionally this includes potency on a single target, eventually specificity as well as the pharmacokinetic, physicochemical and the safety profile. Recently an additional dimension has been added by realizing that the therapeutic outcome of a drug is often determined not only by its activity on a single target but also by its activity profile across a variety of biological targets. To address the polypharmacology of drug candidates many compounds are tested on a set of targets or in phenotypic screens generating a tremendous amount of data. To extract useful information computational methods at the interface of proteomics and cheminformatics are indispensable. This review will focus on some recent developments in this field. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Computational Proteomics in the Post-Identification Era. Guest Editors: Martin Eisenacher and Christian Stephan.

Polypharmacology: drug discovery for the future

In recent years, even with remarkable scientific advancements and a significant increase of global research and development spending, drugs are frequently withdrawn from markets. This is primarily due to their side effects or toxicities. Drug molecules often interact with multiple targets, coined as polypharmacology, and the unintended drug-target interactions could cause side effects. Polypharmacology remains one of the major challenges in drug development, and it opens novel avenues to rationally design the next generation of more effective, but less toxic, therapeutic agents. This review outlines the latest progress and challenges in polypharmacology studies.

Predicting the Drug Safety for Traditional Chinese Medicine through a Comparative Analysis of Withdrawn Drugs Using Pharmacological Network

As the major issue to limit the use of drugs, drug safety leads to the attrition or failure in clinical trials of drugs. Therefore, it would be more efficient to minimize therapeutic risks if it could be predicted before large-scale clinical trials. Here, we integrated a network topology analysis with cheminformatics measurements on drug information from the DrugBank database to detect the discrepancies between approved drugs and withdrawn drugs and give drug safety indications. Thus, 47 approved drugs were unfolded with higher similarity measurements to withdrawn ones by the same target and confirmed to be already withdrawn or discontinued in certain countries or regions in subsequent investigations. Accordingly, with the 2D chemical fingerprint similarity calculation as a medium, the method was applied to predict pharmacovigilance for natural products from an in-house traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) database. Among them, Silibinin was highlighted for the high similarity to the withdrawn drug Plicamycin although it was regarded as a promising drug candidate with a lower toxicity in existing reports. In summary, the network approach integrated with cheminformatics could provide drug safety indications effectively, especially for compounds with unknown targets or mechanisms like natural products. It would be helpful for drug safety surveillance in all phases of drug development.