1
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Zhang C, Zhang X, Freddolino P, Zhang Y. BioLiP2: an updated structure database for biologically relevant ligand-protein interactions. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:D404-D412. [PMID: 37522378 PMCID: PMC10767969 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad630] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2023] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 08/01/2023] Open
Abstract
With the progress of structural biology, the Protein Data Bank (PDB) has witnessed rapid accumulation of experimentally solved protein structures. Since many structures are determined with purification and crystallization additives that are unrelated to a protein's in vivo function, it is nontrivial to identify the subset of protein-ligand interactions that are biologically relevant. We developed the BioLiP2 database (https://zhanggroup.org/BioLiP) to extract biologically relevant protein-ligand interactions from the PDB database. BioLiP2 assesses the functional relevance of the ligands by geometric rules and experimental literature validations. The ligand binding information is further enriched with other function annotations, including Enzyme Commission numbers, Gene Ontology terms, catalytic sites, and binding affinities collected from other databases and a manual literature survey. Compared to its predecessor BioLiP, BioLiP2 offers significantly greater coverage of nucleic acid-protein interactions, and interactions involving large complexes that are unavailable in PDB format. BioLiP2 also integrates cutting-edge structural alignment algorithms with state-of-the-art structure prediction techniques, which for the first time enables composite protein structure and sequence-based searching and significantly enhances the usefulness of the database in structure-based function annotations. With these new developments, BioLiP2 will continue to be an important and comprehensive database for docking, virtual screening, and structure-based protein function analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chengxin Zhang
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Xi Zhang
- Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Peter L Freddolino
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Yang Zhang
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Computer Science, School of Computing, National University of Singapore, 117417, Singapore
- Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore,117599, Singapore
- Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 117596, Singapore
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2
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DrugRep: an automatic virtual screening server for drug repurposing. Acta Pharmacol Sin 2022; 44:888-896. [PMID: 36216900 PMCID: PMC9549438 DOI: 10.1038/s41401-022-00996-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2022] [Accepted: 09/02/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Computationally identifying new targets for existing drugs has drawn much attention in drug repurposing due to its advantages over de novo drugs, including low risk, low costs, and rapid pace. To facilitate the drug repurposing computation, we constructed an automated and parameter-free virtual screening server, namely DrugRep, which performed molecular 3D structure construction, binding pocket prediction, docking, similarity comparison and binding affinity screening in a fully automatic manner. DrugRep repurposed drugs not only by receptor-based screening but also by ligand-based screening. The former automatically detected possible binding pockets of the receptor with our cavity detection approach, and then performed batch docking over drugs with a widespread docking program, AutoDock Vina. The latter explored drugs using seven well-established similarity measuring tools, including our recently developed ligand-similarity-based methods LigMate and FitDock. DrugRep utilized easy-to-use graphic interfaces for the user operation, and offered interactive predictions with state-of-the-art accuracy. We expect that this freely available online drug repurposing tool could be beneficial to the drug discovery community. The web site is http://cao.labshare.cn/drugrep/.
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3
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Virtual Screening of Drug Proteins Based on the Prediction Classification Model of Imbalanced Data Mining. Processes (Basel) 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/pr10071420] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
We propose a virtual screening method based on imbalanced data mining in this paper, which combines virtual screening techniques with imbalanced data classification methods to improve the traditional virtual screening process. First, in the actual virtual screening process, we apply k-means and smote heuristic oversampling method to deal with imbalanced data. Meanwhile, to enhance the accuracy of the virtual screening process, a particle swarm optimization algorithm is introduced to optimize the parameters of the support vector machine classifier, and the concept of ensemble learning is brought in. The classification technique based on particle swarm optimization, support vector machine and adaptive boosting is used to screen the molecular docking conformation to improve the accuracy of the prediction. Finally, in the experimental construction and analysis section, the proposed method was validated using relevant data from the protein data bank database and PubChem database. The experimental results indicated that the proposed method can effectively improve the accuracy of virus screening and has practical guidance for new drug development. This research regards virtual screening as a problem of imbalanced data classification, which has obvious guiding significance and also provides a certain reference for the problems faced by virtual screening technology.
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4
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Yang X, Liu Y, Gan J, Xiao ZX, Cao Y. FitDock: protein-ligand docking by template fitting. Brief Bioinform 2022; 23:6548375. [PMID: 35289358 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbac087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2022] [Revised: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/20/2022] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Protein-ligand docking is an essential method in computer-aided drug design and structural bioinformatics. It can be used to identify active compounds and reveal molecular mechanisms of biological processes. A successful docking usually requires thorough conformation sampling and scoring, which are computationally expensive and difficult. Recent studies demonstrated that it can be beneficial to docking with the guidance of existing similar co-crystal structures. In this work, we developed a protein-ligand docking method, named FitDock, which fits initial conformation to the given template using a hierarchical multi-feature alignment approach, subsequently explores the possible conformations and finally outputs refined docking poses. In our comprehensive benchmark tests, FitDock showed 40%-60% improvement in terms of docking success rate and an order of magnitude faster over popular docking methods, if template structures exist (> 0.5 ligand similarity). FitDock has been implemented in a user-friendly program, which could serve as a convenient tool for drug design and molecular mechanism exploration. It is now freely available for academic users at http://cao.labshare.cn/fitdock/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaocong Yang
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Yang Liu
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Jianhong Gan
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Zhi-Xiong Xiao
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Yang Cao
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.,Animal Disease Prevention and Food Safety Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Microbiology and Metabolic Engineering Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, China
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5
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Zhang W, Huang J. EViS: An Enhanced Virtual Screening Approach Based on Pocket-Ligand Similarity. J Chem Inf Model 2022; 62:498-510. [PMID: 35084171 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c00944] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Virtual screening (VS) is a popular technology in drug discovery to identify a new scaffold of actives for a specific drug target, which can be classified into ligand-based and structure-based approaches. As the number of protein-ligand complex structures available in public databases increases, it would be possible to develop a template searching-based VS approach that utilizes such information. In this work, we proposed an enhanced VS approach, which is termed EViS, to integrate ligand docking, protein pocket template searching, and ligand template shape similarity calculation. A novel and simple PL-score to characterize local pocket-ligand template similarity was used to evaluate the screening compounds. Benchmark tests were performed on three datasets including DUDE, LIT-PCBA, and DEKOIS. EViS achieved the average enrichment factors (EFs) of 27.8 and 23.4 at a 1% cutoff for experimental and predicted structures on the widely used DUDE dataset, respectively. Detailed data analysis shows that EViS benefits from obtaining favorable ligand poses from docking and using such ligand geometric information to perform three-dimensional (3D) ligand similarity calculations, and the PL-score is efficient to screen compounds based on template searching in the protein-ligand structure database.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenyi Zhang
- Westlake AI Therapeutics Lab, Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310024, China.,Key Laboratory of Structural Biology of Zhejiang Province, School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310024, China.,Institute of Biology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310024, China
| | - Jing Huang
- Westlake AI Therapeutics Lab, Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310024, China.,Key Laboratory of Structural Biology of Zhejiang Province, School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310024, China.,Institute of Biology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310024, China
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6
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Guterres H, Park SJ, Cao Y, Im W. CHARMM-GUI Ligand Designer for Template-Based Virtual Ligand Design in a Binding Site. J Chem Inf Model 2021; 61:5336-5342. [PMID: 34757752 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Rational drug design involves a task of finding ligands that would bind to a specific target protein. This work presents CHARMM-GUI Ligand Designer that is an intuitive and interactive web-based tool to design virtual ligands that match the shape and chemical features of a given protein binding site. Ligand Designer provides ligand modification capabilities with 3D visualization that allow researchers to modify and redesign virtual ligands while viewing how the protein-ligand interactions are affected. Virtual ligands can also be parameterized for further molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and free energy calculations. Using 8 targets from 8 different protein classes in the directory of useful decoys, enhanced (DUD-E) data set, we show that Ligand Designer can produce similar ligands to the known active ligands in the crystal structures. Ligand Designer also produces stable protein-ligand complex structures when tested using short MD simulations. We expect that Ligand Designer can be a useful and user-friendly tool to design small molecules in any given potential ligand binding site on a protein of interest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hugo Guterres
- Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Computer Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, United States
| | - Sang-Jun Park
- Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Computer Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, United States
| | - Yiwei Cao
- Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Computer Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, United States
| | - Wonpil Im
- Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Computer Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, United States
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7
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Lin L, Lin K, Wu X, Liu J, Cheng Y, Xu LY, Li EM, Dong G. Potential Inhibitors of Fascin From A Database of Marine Natural Products: A Virtual Screening and Molecular Dynamics Study. Front Chem 2021; 9:719949. [PMID: 34692638 PMCID: PMC8529705 DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2021.719949] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2021] [Accepted: 09/17/2021] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Marine nature products are unique compounds that are produced by the marine environment including plants, animals, and microorganisms. The wide diversity of marine natural products have great potential and are versatile in terms of drug discovery. In this paper, we use state-of-the-art computational methods to discover inhibitors from marine natural products to block the function of Fascin, an overexpressed protein in various cancers. First, virtual screening (pharmacophore model and molecular docking) was carried out based on a marine natural products database (12015 molecules) and provided eighteen molecules that could potentially inhibit the function of Fascin. Next, molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area (MM/GBSA) calculations were conducted and indicated that four molecules have higher binding affinities than the inhibitor NP-G2-029, which was validated experimentally. ADMET analyses of pharmacokinetics demonstrated that one of the four molecules does not match the criterion. Finally, ligand Gaussian accelerated molecular dynamics (LiGaMD) simulations were carried out to validate the three inhibitors binding to Fascin stably. In addition, dynamic interactions between protein and ligands were analyzed systematically. Our study will accelerate the development of the cancer drugs targeting Fascin.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lirui Lin
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- Medical Informatics Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
| | - Kai Lin
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- Medical Informatics Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
| | - Xiaodong Wu
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
| | - Jia Liu
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
| | - Yinwei Cheng
- Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology in High Cancer Incidence Coastal Area of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- Cancer Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
| | - Li-Yan Xu
- Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology in High Cancer Incidence Coastal Area of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- Cancer Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- *Correspondence: Li-Yan Xu, ; En-Min Li, ; Geng Dong,
| | - En-Min Li
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology in High Cancer Incidence Coastal Area of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- *Correspondence: Li-Yan Xu, ; En-Min Li, ; Geng Dong,
| | - Geng Dong
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- Medical Informatics Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
- *Correspondence: Li-Yan Xu, ; En-Min Li, ; Geng Dong,
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8
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Grimm M, Liu Y, Yang X, Bu C, Xiao Z, Cao Y. LigMate: A Multifeature Integration Algorithm for Ligand-Similarity-Based Virtual Screening. J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:6044-6053. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.9b01210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Maximilian Grimm
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
| | - Yang Liu
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
| | - Xiaocong Yang
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
| | - Chunya Bu
- College of Biological Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Agriculture, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Zhixiong Xiao
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
| | - Yang Cao
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
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9
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Kokh DB, Doser B, Richter S, Ormersbach F, Cheng X, Wade RC. A workflow for exploring ligand dissociation from a macromolecule: Efficient random acceleration molecular dynamics simulation and interaction fingerprint analysis of ligand trajectories. J Chem Phys 2020; 153:125102. [DOI: 10.1063/5.0019088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Daria B. Kokh
- Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Bernd Doser
- Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Stefan Richter
- Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Fabian Ormersbach
- Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Xingyi Cheng
- Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
- Molecular Biosciences, Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 282, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Rebecca C. Wade
- Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
- Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance, Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 282, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 205, Heidelberg, Germany
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10
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Virtual Screening of Human Class-A GPCRs Using Ligand Profiles Built on Multiple Ligand-Receptor Interactions. J Mol Biol 2020; 432:4872-4890. [PMID: 32652079 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2020.07.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2020] [Revised: 07/05/2020] [Accepted: 07/07/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are a large family of integral membrane proteins responsible for cellular signal transductions. Identification of therapeutic compounds to regulate physiological processes is an important first step of drug discovery. We proposed MAGELLAN, a novel hierarchical virtual-screening (VS) pipeline, which starts with low-resolution protein structure prediction and structure-based binding-site identification, followed by homologous GPCR detections through structure and orthosteric binding-site comparisons. Ligand profiles constructed from the homologous ligand-GPCR complexes are then used to thread through compound databases for VS. The pipeline was first tested in a large-scale retrospective screening experiment against 224 human Class A GPCRs, where MAGELLAN achieved a median enrichment factor (EF) of 14.38, significantly higher than that using individual ligand profiles. Next, MAGELLAN was examined on 5 and 20 GPCRs from two public VS databases (DUD-E and GPCR-Bench) and resulted in an average EF of 9.75 and 13.70, respectively, which compare favorably with other state-of-the-art docking- and ligand-based methods, including AutoDock Vina (with EF = 1.48/3.16 in DUD-E and GPCR-Bench), DOCK 6 (2.12/3.47 in DUD-E and GPCR-Bench), PoLi (2.2 in DUD-E), and FINDSITECcomb2.0 (2.90 in DUD-E). Detailed data analyses show that the major advantage of MAGELLAN is attributed to the power of ligand profiling, which integrates complementary methods for ligand-GPCR interaction recognition and thus significantly improves the coverage and sensitivity of VS models. Finally, cases studies on opioid and motilin receptors show that new connections between functionally related GPCRs can be visualized in the minimum spanning tree built on the similarities of predicted ligand-binding ensembles, suggesting a novel use of MAGELLAN for GPCR deorphanization.
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11
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He J, Qiao W, An Q, Yang T, Luo Y. Dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors for use as antimicrobial agents. Eur J Med Chem 2020; 195:112268. [PMID: 32298876 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2020.112268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2019] [Revised: 03/22/2020] [Accepted: 03/22/2020] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
Drug-resistant bacteria pose an increasingly serious threat to mankind all over the world. However, the currently available clinical treatments do not meet the urgent demand.Therefore, it is desirable to find new targets and inhibitors to overcome the problems of antibiotic resistance. Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) is an important enzyme required to maintain bacterial growth, and hence inhibitors of DHFR have been proven as effective agents for treating bacterial infections. This review provides insights into the recent discovery of antimicrobial agents targeting DHFR. In particular, three pathogens, Escherichia coli (E. coli), Mycobacterium tuberculosis(Mtb) and Staphylococcus aureus(S. aureus), and research strategies are emphasized. DHFR inhibitors are expected to be good alternatives to fight bacterial infections.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juan He
- State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, West China Medical School, Sichuan University, and Collaborative Innovation Center for Biotherapy, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Wenliang Qiao
- Lung Cancer Center, Laboratory of Lung Cancer, Western China Hospital of Sichuan University
| | - Qi An
- State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, West China Medical School, Sichuan University, and Collaborative Innovation Center for Biotherapy, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Tao Yang
- Laboratory of Human Diseases and Immunotherapies, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China.
| | - Youfu Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, West China Medical School, Sichuan University, and Collaborative Innovation Center for Biotherapy, Chengdu, 610041, China.
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12
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Huang M, Song K, Liu X, Lu S, Shen Q, Wang R, Gao J, Hong Y, Li Q, Ni D, Xu J, Chen G, Zhang J. AlloFinder: a strategy for allosteric modulator discovery and allosterome analyses. Nucleic Acids Res 2019; 46:W451-W458. [PMID: 29757429 PMCID: PMC6030990 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gky374] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2018] [Accepted: 04/28/2018] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Allostery tweaks innumerable biological processes and plays a fundamental role in human disease and drug discovery. Exploration of allostery has thus been regarded as a crucial requirement for research on biological mechanisms and the development of novel therapeutics. Here, based on our previously developed allosteric data and methods, we present an interactive platform called AlloFinder that identifies potential endogenous or exogenous allosteric modulators and their involvement in human allosterome. AlloFinder automatically amalgamates allosteric site identification, allosteric screening and allosteric scoring evaluation of modulator-protein complexes to identify allosteric modulators, followed by allosterome mapping analyses of predicted allosteric sites and modulators in human proteome. This web server exhibits prominent performance in the reemergence of allosteric metabolites and exogenous allosteric modulators in known allosteric proteins. Specifically, AlloFinder enables identification of allosteric metabolites for metabolic enzymes and screening of potential allosteric compounds for disease-related targets. Significantly, the feasibility of AlloFinder to discover allosteric modulators was tested in a real case of signal transduction and activation of transcription 3 (STAT3) and validated by mutagenesis and functional experiments. Collectively, AlloFinder is expected to contribute to exploration of the mechanisms of allosteric regulation between metabolites and metabolic enzymes, and to accelerate allosteric drug discovery. The AlloFinder web server is freely available to all users at http://mdl.shsmu.edu.cn/ALF/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min Huang
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Kun Song
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Xinyi Liu
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Shaoyong Lu
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Qiancheng Shen
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China.,Medicinal Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Renxiao Wang
- Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Jingze Gao
- Medicinal Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Yuanyuan Hong
- Medicinal Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Qian Li
- Medicinal Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Duan Ni
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Jianrong Xu
- Department of Pharmacology, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Guoqiang Chen
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Jian Zhang
- Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China.,Medicinal Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine (SJTU-SM), Shanghai 200025, China
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13
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Engineering brain activity patterns by neuromodulator polytherapy for treatment of disorders. Nat Commun 2019; 10:2620. [PMID: 31197165 PMCID: PMC6565674 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10541-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2018] [Accepted: 05/15/2019] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Conventional drug screens and treatments often ignore the underlying complexity of brain network dysfunctions, resulting in suboptimal outcomes. Here we ask whether we can correct abnormal functional connectivity of the entire brain by identifying and combining multiple neuromodulators that perturb connectivity in complementary ways. Our approach avoids the combinatorial complexity of screening all drug combinations. We develop a high-speed platform capable of imaging more than 15000 neurons in 50ms to map the entire brain functional connectivity in large numbers of vertebrates under many conditions. Screening a panel of drugs in a zebrafish model of human Dravet syndrome, we show that even drugs with related mechanisms of action can modulate functional connectivity in significantly different ways. By clustering connectivity fingerprints, we algorithmically select small subsets of complementary drugs and rapidly identify combinations that are significantly more effective at correcting abnormal networks and reducing spontaneous seizures than monotherapies, while minimizing behavioral side effects. Even at low concentrations, our polytherapy performs superior to individual drugs even at highest tolerated concentrations. Brain disorders are associated with network dysfunctions that are not addressed by conventional drug screens. Here, the authors use high-throughput functional imaging of brain activity in zebrafish larvae to study the effects of individual drugs on network connectivity and demonstrate an algorithm that predicts the most effective drug combinations to normalize both the activity patterns and the animal behavior.
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14
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Lee HS, Im W. Stalis: A Computational Method for Template-Based Ab Initio Ligand Design. J Comput Chem 2019; 40:1622-1632. [PMID: 30829435 DOI: 10.1002/jcc.25813] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2018] [Revised: 01/23/2019] [Accepted: 02/17/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Proteins interact with small molecules through specific molecular recognition, which is central to essential biological functions in living systems. Therefore, understanding such interactions is crucial for basic sciences and drug discovery. Here, we present Structure template-based ab initio ligand design solution (Stalis), a knowledge-based approach that uses structure templates from the Protein Data Bank libraries of whole ligands and their fragments and generates a set of molecules (virtual ligands) whose structures represent the pocket shape and chemical features of a given target binding site. Our benchmark performance evaluation shows that ligand structure-based virtual screening using virtual ligands from Stalis outperforms a receptor structure-based virtual screening using AutoDock Vina, demonstrating reliable overall screening performance applicable to computational high-throughput screening. However, virtual ligands from Stalis are worse in recognizing active compounds at the small fraction of a rank-ordered list of screened library compounds than crystal ligands, due to the low resolution of the virtual ligand structures. In conclusion, Stalis can facilitate drug discovery research by designing virtual ligands that can be used for fast ligand structure-based virtual screening. Moreover, Stalis provides actual three-dimensional ligand structures that likely bind to a target protein, enabling to gain structural insight into potential ligands. Stalis can be an efficient computational platform for high-throughput ligand design for fundamental biological study and drug discovery research at the proteomic level. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Sun Lee
- Departments of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Lehigh University, 111 Research Drive, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015
| | - Wonpil Im
- Departments of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Lehigh University, 111 Research Drive, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015
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15
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Srinivasan B, Tonddast-Navaei S, Roy A, Zhou H, Skolnick J. Chemical space of Escherichia coli dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors: New approaches for discovering novel drugs for old bugs. Med Res Rev 2018; 39:684-705. [PMID: 30192413 DOI: 10.1002/med.21538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2018] [Revised: 07/16/2018] [Accepted: 08/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
Escherichia coli Dihydrofolate reductase is an important enzyme that is essential for the survival of the Gram-negative microorganism. Inhibitors designed against this enzyme have demonstrated application as antibiotics. However, either because of poor bioavailability of the small-molecules resulting from their inability to cross the double membrane in Gram-negative bacteria or because the microorganism develops resistance to the antibiotics by mutating the DHFR target, discovery of new antibiotics against the enzyme is mandatory to overcome drug-resistance. This review summarizes the field of DHFR inhibition with special focus on recent efforts to effectively interface computational and experimental efforts to discover novel classes of inhibitors that target allosteric and active-sites in drug-resistant variants of EcDHFR.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharath Srinivasan
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Sam Tonddast-Navaei
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Ambrish Roy
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Hongyi Zhou
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Jeffrey Skolnick
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
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16
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Zhao H, Taherzadeh G, Zhou Y, Yang Y. Computational Prediction of Carbohydrate-Binding Proteins and Binding Sites. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2018; 94:e75. [PMID: 30106511 DOI: 10.1002/cpps.75] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
Protein-carbohydrate interaction is essential for biological systems, and carbohydrate-binding proteins (CBPs) are important targets when designing antiviral and anticancer drugs. Due to the high cost and difficulty associated with experimental approaches, many computational methods have been developed as complementary approaches to predict CBPs or carbohydrate-binding sites. However, most of these computational methods are not publicly available. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of related studies and demonstrate our two recently developed bioinformatics methods. The method SPOT-CBP is a template-based method for detecting CBPs based on structure through structural homology search combined with a knowledge-based scoring function. This method can yield model complex structure in addition to accurate prediction of CBPs. Furthermore, it has been observed that similarly accurate predictions can be made using structures from homology modeling, which has significantly expanded its applicability. The other method, SPRINT-CBH, is a de novo approach that predicts binding residues directly from protein sequences by using sequence information and predicted structural properties. This approach does not need structurally similar templates and thus is not limited by the current database of known protein-carbohydrate complex structures. These two complementary methods are available at https://sparks-lab.org. © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huiying Zhao
- Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Ghazaleh Taherzadeh
- School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
| | - Yaoqi Zhou
- School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.,Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
| | - Yuedong Yang
- School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.,Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.,School of Data and Computer Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
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17
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Kumar A, Zhang KYJ. Shape similarity guided pose prediction: lessons from D3R Grand Challenge 3. J Comput Aided Mol Des 2018; 33:47-59. [PMID: 30084081 DOI: 10.1007/s10822-018-0142-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2018] [Accepted: 08/01/2018] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
To extend the utility of ligand 3D shape similarity into pose prediction and virtual screening, we have previously developed CDVS and PoPSS methods. Both of them utilize ligand 3D shape similarity with the crystallographic ligands to improve pose prediction. While CDVS utilizes shape similarity to select suitable receptor structures for molecular docking, PoPSS places a ligand conformation of the highest shape similarity with crystal ligands into the target protein binding pocket which is then refined by side-chain repacking and Monte Carlo energy minimization. Analyses of PoPSS revealed some drawbacks in ligand conformation generation and the scoring scheme used. Moreover, as PoPSS does not sample the ligand conformation after placing it in the binding pocket, it relies solely on conformation generation methods to produce native like conformations. To address these limitations of PoPSS method, we report here a modified approach named as PoPSS-Lite, where side-chain repacking was replaced by a simple grid-based energy minimization. This modification also allowed the sampling of terminal functional groups while keeping the core scaffold fixed. Furthermore, shape similarity calculations were improved by increasing the number of ligand conformations and using a different similarity metric. The performance of PoPSS-Lite was prospectively evaluated in D3R GC3. Comparison of PoPSS-Lite demonstrated superior performance over PoPSS and CDVS with lower mean and median RMSDs. Furthermore, comparison with other D3R GC3 pose prediction submissions revealed top performance for PoPSS-Lite. Our D3R GC3 result extends our perspective that ligand 3D shape similarity with known crystallographic information can be successfully used to predict the binding pose of ligands with unknown binding modes. Our D3R GC3 results further highlight the necessity for improvement in conformer generation methods in order to improve shape similarity guided pose prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashutosh Kumar
- Laboratory for Structural Bioinformatics, Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, RIKEN, 1-7-22 Suehiro, Tsurumi, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230-0045, Japan
| | - Kam Y J Zhang
- Laboratory for Structural Bioinformatics, Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, RIKEN, 1-7-22 Suehiro, Tsurumi, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230-0045, Japan.
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18
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Kumar A, Zhang KYJ. Advances in the Development of Shape Similarity Methods and Their Application in Drug Discovery. Front Chem 2018; 6:315. [PMID: 30090808 PMCID: PMC6068280 DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2018.00315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 81] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2018] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Molecular similarity is a key concept in drug discovery. It is based on the assumption that structurally similar molecules frequently have similar properties. Assessment of similarity between small molecules has been highly effective in the discovery and development of various drugs. Especially, two-dimensional (2D) similarity approaches have been quite popular due to their simplicity, accuracy and efficiency. Recently, the focus has been shifted toward the development of methods involving the representation and comparison of three-dimensional (3D) conformation of small molecules. Among the 3D similarity methods, evaluation of shape similarity is now gaining attention for its application not only in virtual screening but also in molecular target prediction, drug repurposing and scaffold hopping. A wide range of methods have been developed to describe molecular shape and to determine the shape similarity between small molecules. The most widely used methods include atom distance-based methods, surface-based approaches such as spherical harmonics and 3D Zernike descriptors, atom-centered Gaussian overlay based representations. Several of these methods demonstrated excellent virtual screening performance not only retrospectively but also prospectively. In addition to methods assessing the similarity between small molecules, shape similarity approaches have been developed to compare shapes of protein structures and binding pockets. Additionally, shape comparisons between atomic models and 3D density maps allowed the fitting of atomic models into cryo-electron microscopy maps. This review aims to summarize the methodological advances in shape similarity assessment highlighting advantages, disadvantages and their application in drug discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Kam Y. J. Zhang
- Laboratory for Structural Bioinformatics, Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, RIKEN, Yokohama, Japan
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19
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Ranking Enzyme Structures in the PDB by Bound Ligand Similarity to Biological Substrates. Structure 2018; 26:565-571.e3. [PMID: 29551288 PMCID: PMC5890617 DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2018.02.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2017] [Revised: 01/26/2018] [Accepted: 02/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
There are numerous applications that use the structures of protein-ligand complexes from the PDB, such as 3D pharmacophore identification, virtual screening, and fragment-based drug design. The structures underlying these applications are potentially much more informative if they contain biologically relevant bound ligands, with high similarity to the cognate ligands. We present a study of ligand-enzyme complexes that compares the similarity of bound and cognate ligands, enabling the best matches to be identified. We calculate the molecular similarity scores using a method called PARITY (proportion of atoms residing in identical topology), which can conveniently be combined to give a similarity score for all cognate reactants or products in the reaction. Thus, we generate a rank-ordered list of related PDB structures, according to the biological similarity of the ligands bound in the structures. We present PARITY, matching atoms in identical topology to gauge ligand similarity Bound-cognate ligand similarity is a useful metric for ranking PDB structures Only 26% of enzyme structures in the PDB have bound-cognate ligand similarity ≥0.7 We provide rank-ordered lists of PDBs with the most biologically relevant ligands
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20
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Eimon PM, Ghannad-Rezaie M, De Rienzo G, Allalou A, Wu Y, Gao M, Roy A, Skolnick J, Yanik MF. Brain activity patterns in high-throughput electrophysiology screen predict both drug efficacies and side effects. Nat Commun 2018; 9:219. [PMID: 29335539 PMCID: PMC5768723 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02404-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2017] [Accepted: 11/25/2017] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Neurological drugs are often associated with serious side effects, yet drug screens typically focus only on efficacy. We demonstrate a novel paradigm utilizing high-throughput in vivo electrophysiology and brain activity patterns (BAPs). A platform with high sensitivity records local field potentials (LFPs) simultaneously from many zebrafish larvae over extended periods. We show that BAPs from larvae experiencing epileptic seizures or drug-induced side effects have substantially reduced complexity (entropy), similar to reduced LFP complexity observed in Parkinson’s disease. To determine whether drugs that enhance BAP complexity produces positive outcomes, we used light pulses to trigger seizures in a model of Dravet syndrome, an intractable genetic epilepsy. The highest-ranked compounds identified by BAP analysis exhibit far greater anti-seizure efficacy and fewer side effects during subsequent in-depth behavioral assessment. This high correlation with behavioral outcomes illustrates the power of brain activity pattern-based screens and identifies novel therapeutic candidates with minimal side effects. One challenge in drug screening for neurological disorders is how to accurately capture disease pathology and side effects. Here, the authors developed a multi-channel recording platform based on a zebrafish genetic model of epilepsy to screen for antiepileptic drugs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter M Eimon
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
| | - Mostafa Ghannad-Rezaie
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,UZH/ETH Irchel Campus, Y17-L76, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Gianluca De Rienzo
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Intellimedix, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Axcella Health, 840 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Amin Allalou
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Yuelong Wu
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Mu Gao
- Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Room 2151, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
| | - Ambrish Roy
- Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Room 2151, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
| | - Jeffrey Skolnick
- Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Room 2151, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
| | - Mehmet Fatih Yanik
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA. .,UZH/ETH Irchel Campus, Y17-L76, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland.
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21
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Brylinski M, Naderi M, Govindaraj RG, Lemoine J. eRepo-ORP: Exploring the Opportunity Space to Combat Orphan Diseases with Existing Drugs. J Mol Biol 2017; 430:2266-2273. [PMID: 29237557 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2017.12.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2017] [Revised: 11/15/2017] [Accepted: 12/05/2017] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
About 7000 rare, or orphan, diseases affect more than 350 million people worldwide. Although these conditions collectively pose significant health care problems, drug companies seldom develop drugs for orphan diseases due to extremely limited individual markets. Consequently, developing new treatments for often life-threatening orphan diseases is primarily contingent on financial incentives from governments, special research grants, and private philanthropy. Computer-aided drug repositioning is a cheaper and faster alternative to traditional drug discovery offering a promising venue for orphan drug research. Here, we present eRepo-ORP, a comprehensive resource constructed by a large-scale repositioning of existing drugs to orphan diseases with a collection of structural bioinformatics tools, including eThread, eFindSite, and eMatchSite. Specifically, a systematic exploration of 320,856 possible links between known drugs in DrugBank and orphan proteins obtained from Orphanet reveals as many as 18,145 candidates for repurposing. In order to illustrate how potential therapeutics for rare diseases can be identified with eRepo-ORP, we discuss the repositioning of a kinase inhibitor for Ras-associated autoimmune leukoproliferative disease. The eRepo-ORP data set is available through the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/qdjup/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michal Brylinski
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA; Center for Computation & Technology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
| | - Misagh Naderi
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
| | | | - Jeffrey Lemoine
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA; Division of Computer Science and Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
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22
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Structural and Dynamics Perspectives on the Binding of Substrate and Inhibitors in Mycobacterium tuberculosis DHFR. Sci Pharm 2017; 85:scipharm85030031. [PMID: 28914808 PMCID: PMC5620518 DOI: 10.3390/scipharm85030031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2017] [Revised: 09/07/2017] [Accepted: 09/08/2017] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), an essential enzyme in the folate pathway, is a potential target for new anti-tuberculosis drugs. Fifteen crystal structures of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DHFR complexed with NADPH and various inhibitors are available in the RCSB Protein Data Bank, but none of them is a substrate binding structure. Therefore, we performed molecular dynamics simulations on ternary complexes of M. tuberculosis DHFR:NADPH with a substrate (dihydrofolate) and each of three competitive inhibitors in 2,4-diaminopyrimidine series (P1, P157, and P169), in order to gain insight into the inhibition-mechanism of DHFR in the folate pathway. The binding energy and thermodynamics values of each system were calculated by the Molecular Mechanics/Generalized Born Surface Area (MM/GBSA) method. The dynamics of the enzyme and the motion of each amino acid residue at the active site were examined. The key factors that promote the binding of P157 and P169 on M. tuberculosis DHFR (mtbDHFR) reveal opportunities for using these compounds as novel anti-tuberculosis drugs.
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23
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Srinivasan B, Tonddast-Navaei S, Skolnick J. Pocket detection and interaction-weighted ligand-similarity search yields novel high-affinity binders for Myocilin-OLF, a protein implicated in glaucoma. Bioorg Med Chem Lett 2017; 27:4133-4139. [PMID: 28739043 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2017.07.035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2017] [Revised: 07/10/2017] [Accepted: 07/11/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Traditional structure and ligand based virtual screening approaches rely on the availability of structural and ligand binding information. To overcome this limitation, hybrid approaches were developed that relied on extraction of ligand binding information from proteins sharing similar folds and hence, evolutionarily relationship. However, they cannot target a chosen pocket in a protein. To address this, a pocket centric virtual ligand screening approach is required. Here, we employ a new, iterative implementation of a pocket and ligand-similarity based approach to virtual ligand screening to predict small molecule binders for the olfactomedin domain of human myocilin implicated in glaucoma. Small-molecule binders of the protein might prevent the aggregation of the protein, commonly seen during glaucoma. First round experimental assessment of the predictions using differential scanning fluorimetry with myoc-OLF yielded 7 hits with a success rate of 12.7%; the best hit had an apparent dissociation constant of 99nM. By matching to the key functional groups of the best ligand that were likely involved in binding, the affinity of the best hit was improved by almost 10,000 fold from the high nanomolar to the low picomolar range. Thus, this study provides preliminary validation of the methodology on a medically important glaucoma associated protein.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharath Srinivasan
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States
| | - Sam Tonddast-Navaei
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States
| | - Jeffrey Skolnick
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States.
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24
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Srinivasan B, Rodrigues JV, Tonddast-Navaei S, Shakhnovich E, Skolnick J. Rational Design of Novel Allosteric Dihydrofolate Reductase Inhibitors Showing Antibacterial Effects on Drug-Resistant Escherichia coli Escape Variants. ACS Chem Biol 2017; 12:1848-1857. [PMID: 28525268 DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.7b00175] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
In drug discovery, systematic variations of substituents on a common scaffold and bioisosteric replacements are often used to generate diversity and obtain molecules with better biological effects. However, this could saturate the small-molecule diversity pool resulting in drug resistance. On the other hand, conventional drug discovery relies on targeting known pockets on protein surfaces leading to drug resistance by mutations of critical pocket residues. Here, we present a two-pronged strategy of designing novel drugs that target unique pockets on a protein's surface to overcome the above problems. Dihydrofolate reductase, DHFR, is a critical enzyme involved in thymidine and purine nucleotide biosynthesis. Several classes of compounds that are structural analogues of the substrate dihydrofolate have been explored for their antifolate activity. Here, we describe 10 novel small-molecule inhibitors of Escherichia coli DHFR, EcDHFR, belonging to the stilbenoid, deoxybenzoin, and chalcone family of compounds discovered by a combination of pocket-based virtual ligand screening and systematic scaffold hopping. These inhibitors show a unique uncompetitive or noncompetitive inhibition mechanism, distinct from those reported for all known inhibitors of DHFR, indicative of binding to a unique pocket distinct from either substrate or cofactor-binding pockets. Furthermore, we demonstrate that rescue mutants of EcDHFR, with reduced affinity to all known classes of DHFR inhibitors, are inhibited at the same concentration as the wild-type. These compounds also exhibit antibacterial activity against E. coli harboring the drug-resistant variant of DHFR. This discovery is the first report on a novel class of inhibitors targeting a unique pocket on EcDHFR.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharath Srinivasan
- Center
for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
| | - João V. Rodrigues
- Department
of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford
Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
| | - Sam Tonddast-Navaei
- Center
for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
| | - Eugene Shakhnovich
- Department
of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford
Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
| | - Jeffrey Skolnick
- Center
for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
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25
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Tonddast-Navaei S, Srinivasan B, Skolnick J. On the importance of composite protein multiple ligand interactions in protein pockets. J Comput Chem 2017; 38:1252-1259. [PMID: 27864975 PMCID: PMC5403588 DOI: 10.1002/jcc.24523] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2016] [Revised: 09/26/2016] [Accepted: 10/11/2016] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Conventional small molecule drug-discovery approaches target protein pockets. However, the limited number of geometrically distinct pockets leads to widespread promiscuity and deleterious side-effects. Here, the idea of COmposite protein LIGands (COLIG) that interact with each other as well as the protein within a single ligand binding pocket is examined. As a practical illustration, experimental evidence that E. coli Dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors are COLIGs is presented. Then, analysis of a non-redundant set of all holo PDB structures indicates that almost 47-76% of proteins (based on different sequence identity thresholds) can simultaneously bind multiple, interacting ligands in the same pocket. Moreover, most ligands that are either Singletons and COLIGs bind at the bottom of ligand binding pocket and occupy 30% and 43% of the volume of the bottom of the pocket. This suggests the use of COLIGs as a potential new class of small molecule drugs. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sam Tonddast-Navaei
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
| | - Bharath Srinivasan
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
| | - Jeffrey Skolnick
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
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26
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Litfin T, Zhou Y, Yang Y. SPOT-ligand 2: improving structure-based virtual screening by binding-homology search on an expanded structural template library. Bioinformatics 2017; 33:1238-1240. [PMID: 28057679 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btw829] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2016] [Accepted: 12/27/2016] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation The high cost of drug discovery motivates the development of accurate virtual screening tools. Binding-homology, which takes advantage of known protein-ligand binding pairs, has emerged as a powerful discrimination technique. In order to exploit all available binding data, modelled structures of ligand-binding sequences may be used to create an expanded structural binding template library. Results SPOT-Ligand 2 has demonstrated significantly improved screening performance over its previous version by expanding the template library 15 times over the previous one. It also performed better than or similar to other binding-homology approaches on the DUD and DUD-E benchmarks. Availability and Implementation The server is available online at http://sparks-lab.org . Contacts yaoqi.zhou@griffith.edu.au or yuedong.yang@griffith.edu.au. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Yaoqi Zhou
- School of Information and Communication Technology.,Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Southport, Queensland 4215, Australia
| | - Yuedong Yang
- School of Information and Communication Technology.,Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Southport, Queensland 4215, Australia
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27
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Srinivasan B, Zhou H, Mitra S, Skolnick J. Novel small molecule binders of human N-glycanase 1, a key player in the endoplasmic reticulum associated degradation pathway. Bioorg Med Chem 2016; 24:4750-4758. [PMID: 27567076 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmc.2016.08.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2016] [Revised: 08/08/2016] [Accepted: 08/12/2016] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Peptide:N-glycanase (NGLY1) is an enzyme responsible for cleaving oligosaccharide moieties from misfolded glycoproteins to enable their proper degradation. Deletion and truncation mutations in this gene are responsible for an inherited disorder of the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation pathway. However, the literature is unclear whether the disorder is a result of mutations leading to loss-of-function, loss of substrate specificity, loss of protein stability or a combination of these factors. In this communication, without burdening ourselves with the mechanistic underpinning of disease causation because of mutations on the NGLY1 protein, we demonstrate the successful application of virtual ligand screening (VLS) combined with experimental high-throughput validation to the discovery of novel small-molecules that show binding to the transglutaminase domain of NGLY1. Attempts at recombinant expression and purification of six different constructs led to successful expression of five, with three constructs purified to homogeneity. Most mutant variants failed to purify possibly because of misfolding and the resultant exposure of surface hydrophobicity that led to protein aggregation. For the purified constructs, our threading/structure-based VLS algorithm, FINDSITE(comb), was employed to predict ligands that may bind to the protein. Then, the predictions were assessed by high-throughput differential scanning fluorimetry. This led to the identification of nine different ligands that bind to the protein of interest and provide clues to the nature of pharmacophore that facilitates binding. This is the first study that has identified novel ligands that bind to the NGLY1 protein as a possible starting point in the discovery of ligands with potential therapeutic applications in the treatment of the disorder caused by NGLY1 mutants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharath Srinivasan
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States.
| | - Hongyi Zhou
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States
| | - Sreyoshi Mitra
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States
| | - Jeffrey Skolnick
- Center for the Study of Systems Biology, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 950, Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States.
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Kumar A, Zhang KYJ. Prospective evaluation of shape similarity based pose prediction method in D3R Grand Challenge 2015. J Comput Aided Mol Des 2016; 30:685-693. [DOI: 10.1007/s10822-016-9931-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2016] [Accepted: 07/25/2016] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
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A pose prediction approach based on ligand 3D shape similarity. J Comput Aided Mol Des 2016; 30:457-69. [DOI: 10.1007/s10822-016-9923-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2016] [Accepted: 07/01/2016] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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Catalytic and substrate promiscuity: distinct multiple chemistries catalysed by the phosphatase domain of receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase. Biochem J 2016; 473:2165-77. [PMID: 27208174 DOI: 10.1042/bcj20160289] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2016] [Accepted: 05/16/2016] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
The presence of latent activities in enzymes is posited to underlie the natural evolution of new catalytic functions. However, the prevalence and extent of such substrate and catalytic ambiguity in evolved enzymes is difficult to address experimentally given the order-of-magnitude difference in the activities for native and, sometimes, promiscuous substrate/s. Further, such latent functions are of special interest when the activities concerned do not fall into the domain of substrate promiscuity. In the present study, we show a special case of such latent enzyme activity by demonstrating the presence of two mechanistically distinct reactions catalysed by the catalytic domain of receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase isoform δ (PTPRδ). The primary catalytic activity involves the hydrolysis of a phosphomonoester bond (C─O─P) with high catalytic efficiency, whereas the secondary activity is the hydrolysis of a glycosidic bond (C─O─C) with poorer catalytic efficiency. This enzyme also displays substrate promiscuity by hydrolysing diester bonds while being highly discriminative for its monoester substrates. To confirm these activities, we also demonstrated their presence on the catalytic domain of protein tyrosine phosphatase Ω (PTPRΩ), a homologue of PTPRδ. Studies on the rate, metal-ion dependence, pH dependence and inhibition of the respective activities showed that they are markedly different. This is the first study that demonstrates a novel sugar hydrolase and diesterase activity for the phosphatase domain (PD) of PTPRδ and PTPRΩ. This work has significant implications for both understanding the evolution of enzymatic activity and the possible physiological role of this new chemistry. Our findings suggest that the genome might harbour a wealth of such alternative latent enzyme activities in the same protein domain that renders our knowledge of metabolic networks incomplete.
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Yang Y, Zhan J, Zhou Y. SPOT‐Ligand: Fast and effective structure‐based virtual screening by binding homology search according to ligand and receptor similarity. J Comput Chem 2016; 37:1734-9. [DOI: 10.1002/jcc.24380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2015] [Revised: 01/12/2016] [Accepted: 03/05/2016] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Yuedong Yang
- Institute for Glycomics and School of Information and Communication TechnologyGriffith UniversityParklands DrSouthport QLD4222 Australia
| | - Jian Zhan
- Institute for Glycomics and School of Information and Communication TechnologyGriffith UniversityParklands DrSouthport QLD4222 Australia
| | - Yaoqi Zhou
- Institute for Glycomics and School of Information and Communication TechnologyGriffith UniversityParklands DrSouthport QLD4222 Australia
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