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Recent Advances in In Silico Target Fishing. Molecules 2021; 26:molecules26175124. [PMID: 34500568 PMCID: PMC8433825 DOI: 10.3390/molecules26175124] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2021] [Revised: 08/14/2021] [Accepted: 08/18/2021] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
In silico target fishing, whose aim is to identify possible protein targets for a query molecule, is an emerging approach used in drug discovery due its wide variety of applications. This strategy allows the clarification of mechanism of action and biological activities of compounds whose target is still unknown. Moreover, target fishing can be employed for the identification of off targets of drug candidates, thus recognizing and preventing their possible adverse effects. For these reasons, target fishing has increasingly become a key approach for polypharmacology, drug repurposing, and the identification of new drug targets. While experimental target fishing can be lengthy and difficult to implement, due to the plethora of interactions that may occur for a single small-molecule with different protein targets, an in silico approach can be quicker, less expensive, more efficient for specific protein structures, and thus easier to employ. Moreover, the possibility to use it in combination with docking and virtual screening studies, as well as the increasing number of web-based tools that have been recently developed, make target fishing a more appealing method for drug discovery. It is especially worth underlining the increasing implementation of machine learning in this field, both as a main target fishing approach and as a further development of already applied strategies. This review reports on the main in silico target fishing strategies, belonging to both ligand-based and receptor-based approaches, developed and applied in the last years, with a particular attention to the different web tools freely accessible by the scientific community for performing target fishing studies.
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Gazgalis D, Zaka M, Abbasi BH, Logothetis DE, Mezei M, Cui M. Protein Binding Pocket Optimization for Virtual High-Throughput Screening (vHTS) Drug Discovery. ACS OMEGA 2020; 5:14297-14307. [PMID: 32596567 PMCID: PMC7315428 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c00522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2020] [Accepted: 05/28/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The virtual high-throughput screening (vHTS) approach has been widely used for large database screening to identify potential lead compounds for drug discovery. Due to its high computational demands, docking that allows receptor flexibility has been a challenging problem for virtual screening. Therefore, the selection of protein target conformations is crucial to produce useful vHTS results. Since only a single protein structure is used to screen large databases in most vHTS studies, the main challenge is to reduce false negative rates in selecting compounds for in vitro tests. False negatives are most likely to occur when using apo structures or homology models of protein targets due to the small volume of the binding pocket formed by incorrect side-chain conformations. Even holo protein structures can exhibit high false negative rates due to ligand-induced fit effects, since the shape of the binding pocket highly depends on its bound ligand. To reduce false negative rates and improve success rates for vHTS in drug discovery, we have developed a new Monte Carlo-based approach that optimizes the binding pocket of protein targets. This newly developed Monte Carlo pocket optimization (MCPO) approach was assessed on several datasets showing promising results. The binding pocket optimization approach could be a useful tool for vHTS-based drug discovery, especially in cases when only apo structures or homology models are available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dimitris Gazgalis
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Northeastern
University School of Pharmacy, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
| | - Mehreen Zaka
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Northeastern
University School of Pharmacy, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
- Department
of Biotechnology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
| | - Bilal Haider Abbasi
- Department
of Biotechnology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
| | - Diomedes E. Logothetis
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Northeastern
University School of Pharmacy, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
| | - Mihaly Mezei
- Department
of Pharmacological Sciences, Icahn School
of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Meng Cui
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Northeastern
University School of Pharmacy, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
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Huang H, Zhang G, Zhou Y, Lin C, Chen S, Lin Y, Mai S, Huang Z. Reverse Screening Methods to Search for the Protein Targets of Chemopreventive Compounds. Front Chem 2018; 6:138. [PMID: 29868550 PMCID: PMC5954125 DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2018.00138] [Citation(s) in RCA: 78] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2018] [Accepted: 04/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This article is a systematic review of reverse screening methods used to search for the protein targets of chemopreventive compounds or drugs. Typical chemopreventive compounds include components of traditional Chinese medicine, natural compounds and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs. Such compounds are somewhat selective but are predisposed to bind multiple protein targets distributed throughout diverse signaling pathways in human cells. In contrast to conventional virtual screening, which identifies the ligands of a targeted protein from a compound database, reverse screening is used to identify the potential targets or unintended targets of a given compound from a large number of receptors by examining their known ligands or crystal structures. This method, also known as in silico or computational target fishing, is highly valuable for discovering the target receptors of query molecules from terrestrial or marine natural products, exploring the molecular mechanisms of chemopreventive compounds, finding alternative indications of existing drugs by drug repositioning, and detecting adverse drug reactions and drug toxicity. Reverse screening can be divided into three major groups: shape screening, pharmacophore screening and reverse docking. Several large software packages, such as Schrödinger and Discovery Studio; typical software/network services such as ChemMapper, PharmMapper, idTarget, and INVDOCK; and practical databases of known target ligands and receptor crystal structures, such as ChEMBL, BindingDB, and the Protein Data Bank (PDB), are available for use in these computational methods. Different programs, online services and databases have different applications and constraints. Here, we conducted a systematic analysis and multilevel classification of the computational programs, online services and compound libraries available for shape screening, pharmacophore screening and reverse docking to enable non-specialist users to quickly learn and grasp the types of calculations used in protein target fishing. In addition, we review the main features of these methods, programs and databases and provide a variety of examples illustrating the application of one or a combination of reverse screening methods for accurate target prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongbin Huang
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,The Second School of Clinical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Guigui Zhang
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Yuquan Zhou
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,The Second School of Clinical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Chenru Lin
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Suling Chen
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,The Second School of Clinical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Yutong Lin
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Shangkang Mai
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,The Second School of Clinical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
| | - Zunnan Huang
- Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China.,School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University Dongguan, China
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