1
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Bansal N, Wang Y, Sciabola S. Machine Learning Methods as a Cost-Effective Alternative to Physics-Based Binding Free Energy Calculations. Molecules 2024; 29:830. [PMID: 38398581 PMCID: PMC10893267 DOI: 10.3390/molecules29040830] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2023] [Revised: 01/24/2024] [Accepted: 02/09/2024] [Indexed: 02/25/2024] Open
Abstract
The rank ordering of ligands remains one of the most attractive challenges in drug discovery. While physics-based in silico binding affinity methods dominate the field, they still have problems, which largely revolve around forcefield accuracy and sampling. Recent advances in machine learning have gained traction for protein-ligand binding affinity predictions in early drug discovery programs. In this article, we perform retrospective binding free energy evaluations for 172 compounds from our internal collection spread over four different protein targets and five congeneric ligand series. We compared multiple state-of-the-art free energy methods ranging from physics-based methods with different levels of complexity and conformational sampling to state-of-the-art machine-learning-based methods that were available to us. Overall, we found that physics-based methods behaved particularly well when the ligand perturbations were made in the solvation region, and they did not perform as well when accounting for large conformational changes in protein active sites. On the other end, machine-learning-based methods offer a good cost-effective alternative for binding free energy calculations, but the accuracy of their predictions is highly dependent on the experimental data available for training the model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nupur Bansal
- Biotherapeutic and Medicinal Sciences, Biogen, 225 Binney Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; (Y.W.); (S.S.)
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2
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Yu S, Zhang Y, Yang J, Xu H, Lan S, Zhao B, Luo M, Ma X, Zhang H, Wang S, Shen H, Zhang Y, Xu Y, Li R. Discovery of (R)-4-(8-methoxy-2-methyl-1-(1-phenylethy)-1H-imidazo[4,5-c]quinnolin-7-yl)-3,5-dimethylisoxazole as a potent and selective BET inhibitor for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) guided by FEP calculation. Eur J Med Chem 2024; 263:115924. [PMID: 37992518 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2023.115924] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Revised: 10/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/29/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023]
Abstract
The functions of the bromodomain and extra terminal (BET) family of proteins have been proved to be involved in various diseases, particularly the acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In this work, guided by free energy perturbation (FEP) calculation, a methyl group was selected to be attached to the 1H-imidazo[4,5-c]quinoline skeleton, and a series of congeneric compounds were synthesized. Among them, compound 10 demonstrated outstanding activity against BRD4 BD1 with an IC50 value of 1.9 nM and exhibited remarkable antiproliferative effects against MV4-11 cells. The X-ray cocrystal structure proved that 10 occupied the acetylated lysine (KAc) binding cavity and the WPF shelf of BRD4 BD1. Additionally, 10 displayed high selectivity towards BET family members, effectively inhibiting the growth of AML cells, promoting apoptosis, and arresting the cell cycle at the G0/G1 phase. Further mechanistic studies demonstrated that compound 10 could suppress the expression of c-Myc and CDK6 while enhancing the expression of P21, PARP, and cleaved PARP. Moreover, 10 exhibited remarkable pharmacokinetic properties and significant antitumor efficacy in vivo. Therefore, compound 10 may represent a new, potent and selective BET bromodomain inhibitor for the development of therapeutics to treat AML.
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Affiliation(s)
- Su Yu
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Yan Zhang
- Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China; Lung Cancer Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
| | - Jie Yang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Hongrui Xu
- Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 190 Kaiyuan Avenue, Guangzhou, 510530, China
| | - Suke Lan
- College of Chemistry & Environment Protection Engineering, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Binyan Zhao
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Meng Luo
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Xinyu Ma
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Hongjia Zhang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Shirui Wang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China
| | - Hui Shen
- Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 190 Kaiyuan Avenue, Guangzhou, 510530, China
| | - Yan Zhang
- Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 190 Kaiyuan Avenue, Guangzhou, 510530, China
| | - Yong Xu
- Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 190 Kaiyuan Avenue, Guangzhou, 510530, China.
| | - Rui Li
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China.
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3
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Ross GA, Lu C, Scarabelli G, Albanese SK, Houang E, Abel R, Harder ED, Wang L. The maximal and current accuracy of rigorous protein-ligand binding free energy calculations. Commun Chem 2023; 6:222. [PMID: 37838760 PMCID: PMC10576784 DOI: 10.1038/s42004-023-01019-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2022] [Accepted: 10/02/2023] [Indexed: 10/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Computational techniques can speed up the identification of hits and accelerate the development of candidate molecules for drug discovery. Among techniques for predicting relative binding affinities, the most consistently accurate is free energy perturbation (FEP), a class of rigorous physics-based methods. However, uncertainty remains about how accurate FEP is and can ever be. Here, we present what we believe to be the largest publicly available dataset of proteins and congeneric series of small molecules, and assess the accuracy of the leading FEP workflow. To ascertain the limit of achievable accuracy, we also survey the reproducibility of experimental relative affinity measurements. We find a wide variability in experimental accuracy and a correspondence between binding and functional assays. When careful preparation of protein and ligand structures is undertaken, FEP can achieve accuracy comparable to experimental reproducibility. Throughout, we highlight reliable protocols that can help maximize the accuracy of FEP in prospective studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gregory A Ross
- Schrödinger Inc, New York, NY, USA.
- Isomorphic Labs, London, UK.
| | - Chao Lu
- Schrödinger Inc, New York, NY, USA
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4
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de Oliveira C, Leswing K, Feng S, Kanters R, Abel R, Bhat S. FEP Protocol Builder: Optimization of Free Energy Perturbation Protocols Using Active Learning. J Chem Inf Model 2023; 63:5592-5603. [PMID: 37594480 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00681] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/19/2023]
Abstract
Significant improvements have been made in the past decade to methods that rapidly and accurately predict binding affinity through free energy perturbation (FEP) calculations. This has been driven by recent advances in small-molecule force fields and sampling algorithms combined with the availability of low-cost parallel computing. Predictive accuracies of ∼1 kcal mol-1 have been regularly achieved, which are sufficient to drive potency optimization in modern drug discovery campaigns. Despite the robustness of these FEP approaches across multiple target classes, there are invariably target systems that do not display expected performance with default FEP settings. Traditionally, these systems required labor-intensive manual protocol development to arrive at parameter settings that produce a predictive FEP model. Due to the (a) relatively large parameter space to be explored, (b) significant compute requirements, and (c) limited understanding of how combinations of parameters can affect FEP performance, manual FEP protocol optimization can take weeks to months to complete, and often does not involve rigorous train-test set splits, resulting in potential overfitting. These manual FEP protocol development timelines do not coincide with tight drug discovery project timelines, essentially preventing the use of FEP calculations for these target systems. Here, we describe an automated workflow termed FEP Protocol Builder (FEP-PB) to rapidly generate accurate FEP protocols for systems that do not perform well with default settings. FEP-PB uses an active-learning workflow to iteratively search the protocol parameter space to develop accurate FEP protocols. To validate this approach, we applied it to pharmaceutically relevant systems where default FEP settings could not produce predictive models. We demonstrate that FEP-PB can rapidly generate accurate FEP protocols for the previously challenging MCL1 system with limited human intervention. We also apply FEP-PB in a real-world drug discovery setting to generate an accurate FEP protocol for the p97 system. FEP-PB is able to generate a more accurate protocol than the expert user, rapidly validating p97 as amenable to free energy calculations. Additionally, through the active-learning workflow, we are able to gain insight into which parameters are most important for a given system. These results suggest that FEP-PB is a robust tool that can aid in rapidly developing accurate FEP protocols and increasing the number of targets that are amenable to the technology.
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Affiliation(s)
- César de Oliveira
- Schrodinger, Inc., 9868 Scranton Road, Suite 3200, San Diego, California 92121, United States
| | - Karl Leswing
- Schrodinger, Inc., 1540 Broadway, 24th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Shulu Feng
- Schrodinger, Inc., 1540 Broadway, 24th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - René Kanters
- Schrodinger, Inc., 1540 Broadway, 24th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Robert Abel
- Schrodinger, Inc., 1540 Broadway, 24th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Sathesh Bhat
- Schrodinger, Inc., 1540 Broadway, 24th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
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5
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Baumann H, Dybeck E, McClendon CL, Pickard FC, Gapsys V, Pérez-Benito L, Hahn DF, Tresadern G, Mathiowetz AM, Mobley DL. Broadening the Scope of Binding Free Energy Calculations Using a Separated Topologies Approach. J Chem Theory Comput 2023; 19:5058-5076. [PMID: 37487138 PMCID: PMC10413862 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00282] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2023] [Indexed: 07/26/2023]
Abstract
Binding free energy calculations predict the potency of compounds to protein binding sites in a physically rigorous manner and see broad application in prioritizing the synthesis of novel drug candidates. Relative binding free energy (RBFE) calculations have emerged as an industry-standard approach to achieve highly accurate rank-order predictions of the potency of related compounds; however, this approach requires that the ligands share a common scaffold and a common binding mode, restricting the methods' domain of applicability. This is a critical limitation since complex modifications to the ligands, especially core hopping, are very common in drug design. Absolute binding free energy (ABFE) calculations are an alternate method that can be used for ligands that are not congeneric. However, ABFE suffers from a known problem of long convergence times due to the need to sample additional degrees of freedom within each system, such as sampling rearrangements necessary to open and close the binding site. Here, we report on an alternative method for RBFE, called Separated Topologies (SepTop), which overcomes the issues in both of the aforementioned methods by enabling large scaffold changes between ligands with a convergence time comparable to traditional RBFE. Instead of only mutating atoms that vary between two ligands, this approach performs two absolute free energy calculations at the same time in opposite directions, one for each ligand. Defining the two ligands independently allows the comparison of the binding of diverse ligands without the artificial constraints of identical poses or a suitable atom-atom mapping. This approach also avoids the need to sample the unbound state of the protein, making it more efficient than absolute binding free energy calculations. Here, we introduce an implementation of SepTop. We developed a general and efficient protocol for running SepTop, and we demonstrated the method on four diverse, pharmaceutically relevant systems. We report the performance of the method, as well as our practical insights into the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of applying this method in an industrial drug design setting. We find that the accuracy of the approach is sufficiently high to rank order ligands with an accuracy comparable to traditional RBFE calculations while maintaining the additional flexibility of SepTop.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah
M. Baumann
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of
California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, United States
| | - Eric Dybeck
- Pfizer
Worldwide Research, Development, and Medical, 1 Portland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Christopher L. McClendon
- Pfizer
Worldwide Research, Development, and Medical, 1 Portland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Frank C. Pickard
- Pfizer
Worldwide Research, Development, and Medical, 1 Portland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Vytautas Gapsys
- Computational
Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Laura Pérez-Benito
- Computational
Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - David F. Hahn
- Computational
Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational
Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Alan M. Mathiowetz
- Pfizer
Worldwide Research, Development, and Medical, 1 Portland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - David L. Mobley
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of
California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, United States
- Department
of Chemistry, University of California,
Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, United States
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6
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Sun S, Fushimi M, Rossetti T, Kaur N, Ferreira J, Miller M, Quast J, van den Heuvel J, Steegborn C, Levin LR, Buck J, Myers RW, Kargman S, Liverton N, Meinke PT, Huggins DJ. Scaffold Hopping and Optimization of Small Molecule Soluble Adenyl Cyclase Inhibitors Led by Free Energy Perturbation. J Chem Inf Model 2023; 63:2828-2841. [PMID: 37060320 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.2c01577] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/16/2023]
Abstract
Free energy perturbation is a computational technique that can be used to predict how small changes to an inhibitor structure will affect the binding free energy to its target. In this paper, we describe the utility of free energy perturbation with FEP+ in the hit-to-lead stage of a drug discovery project targeting soluble adenyl cyclase. The project was structurally enabled by X-ray crystallography throughout. We employed free energy perturbation to first scaffold hop to a preferable chemotype and then optimize the binding affinity to sub-nanomolar levels while retaining druglike properties. The results illustrate that effective use of free energy perturbation can enable a drug discovery campaign to progress rapidly from hit to lead, facilitating proof-of-concept studies that enable target validation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shan Sun
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
| | - Makoto Fushimi
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
| | - Thomas Rossetti
- Department of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, New York 10056, United States
| | - Navpreet Kaur
- Department of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, New York 10056, United States
| | - Jacob Ferreira
- Department of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, New York 10056, United States
| | - Michael Miller
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
| | - Jonathan Quast
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440, Germany
| | | | - Clemens Steegborn
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440, Germany
| | - Lonny R Levin
- Department of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, New York 10056, United States
| | - Jochen Buck
- Department of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, New York 10056, United States
| | - Robert W Myers
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
| | - Stacia Kargman
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
| | - Nigel Liverton
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
| | - Peter T Meinke
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
- Department of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, New York 10056, United States
| | - David J Huggins
- Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, New York, New York 10021, United States
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York, New York 10065, United States
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7
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Xu H. The slow but steady rise of binding free energy calculations in drug discovery. J Comput Aided Mol Des 2023; 37:67-74. [PMID: 36469232 DOI: 10.1007/s10822-022-00494-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Accepted: 11/28/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Binding free energy calculations are increasingly used in drug discovery research to predict protein-ligand binding affinities and to prioritize candidate drug molecules accordingly. It has taken decades of collective effort to transform this academic concept into a technology adopted by the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Having personally witnessed and taken part in this transformation, here I recount the (incomplete) list of problems that had to be solved to make this computational tool practical and suggest areas of future development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huafeng Xu
- Roivant Discovery, 151 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036, USA.
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8
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Breznik M, Ge Y, Bluck JP, Briem H, Hahn DF, Christ CD, Mortier J, Mobley DL, Meier K. Prioritizing Small Sets of Molecules for Synthesis through in-silico Tools: A Comparison of Common Ranking Methods. ChemMedChem 2023; 18:e202200425. [PMID: 36240514 PMCID: PMC9868080 DOI: 10.1002/cmdc.202200425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Revised: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Prioritizing molecules for synthesis is a key role of computational methods within medicinal chemistry. Multiple tools exist for ranking molecules, from the cheap and popular molecular docking methods to more computationally expensive molecular-dynamics (MD)-based methods. It is often questioned whether the accuracy of the more rigorous methods justifies the higher computational cost and associated calculation time. Here, we compared the performance on ranking the binding of small molecules for seven scoring functions from five docking programs, one end-point method (MM/GBSA), and two MD-based free energy methods (PMX, FEP+). We investigated 16 pharmaceutically relevant targets with a total of 423 known binders. The performance of docking methods for ligand ranking was strongly system dependent. We observed that MD-based methods predominantly outperformed docking algorithms and MM/GBSA calculations. Based on our results, we recommend the application of MD-based free energy methods for prioritization of molecules for synthesis in lead optimization, whenever feasible.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marko Breznik
- Computational Molecular Design, Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Bayer AG, 13342 Berlin, Germany
| | - Yunhui Ge
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - Joseph P. Bluck
- Computational Molecular Design, Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Bayer AG, 13342 Berlin, Germany
| | - Hans Briem
- Computational Molecular Design, Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Bayer AG, 13342 Berlin, Germany
| | - David F. Hahn
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
| | - Clara D. Christ
- Molecular Design, Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Bayer AG, 13342 Berlin, Germany
| | - Jérémie Mortier
- Computational Molecular Design, Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Bayer AG, 13342 Berlin, Germany
| | - David L. Mobley
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA,Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - Katharina Meier
- Computational Life Science Technology Functions, Crop Science, R&D, Bayer AG, 40789 Monheim, Germany
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9
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Manish M, Mishra S, Anand A, Subbarao N. Computational molecular interaction between SARS-CoV-2 main protease and theaflavin digallate using free energy perturbation and molecular dynamics. Comput Biol Med 2022; 150:106125. [PMID: 36240593 PMCID: PMC9507791 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2022.106125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2022] [Revised: 09/10/2022] [Accepted: 09/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022]
Abstract
Our objective was to identify the molecule which can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 main protease and can be easily procured. Natural products may provide such molecules and can supplement the current custom chemical synthesis-based drug discovery for this objective. A combination of docking approaches, scoring functions, classical molecular dynamic simulation, binding pose metadynamics, and free energy perturbation calculations have been employed in this study. Theaflavin digallate has been observed in top-scoring compounds after the three independent virtual screening simulations of 598435 compounds (unique 27256 chemical entities). The main protease-theaflavin digallate complex interacts with critical active site residues of the main protease in molecular dynamics simulation independent of the explored computational framework, simulation time, initial structure, and force field used. Theaflavin digallate forms approximately three hydrogen bonds with Glutamate166 of main protease, primarily through hydroxyl groups in the benzene ring of benzo(7)annulen-6-one, along with other critical residues. Glu166 is the most critical amino acid for main protease dimerization, which is necessary for catalytic activity. The estimated binding free energy, calculated by Amber and Schrodinger MMGBSA module, reflects a high binding free energy between theaflavin digallate and main protease. Binding pose metadynamics simulation shows the highly persistent H-bond and a stable pose for the theaflavin digallate-main protease complex. Using method control, experimental controls, and test set, alchemical transformation studies confirm high relative binding free energy of theaflavin digallate with the main protease. Computational molecular interaction suggests that theaflavin digallate can inhibit the main protease of SARS-CoV-2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manish Manish
- School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
| | - Smriti Mishra
- School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
| | - Ayush Anand
- BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal.
| | - Naidu Subbarao
- School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
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10
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Hahn DF, Bayly CI, Boby ML, Macdonald HEB, Chodera JD, Gapsys V, Mey ASJS, Mobley DL, Benito LP, Schindler CEM, Tresadern G, Warren GL. Best practices for constructing, preparing, and evaluating protein-ligand binding affinity benchmarks [Article v0.1]. LIVING JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL MOLECULAR SCIENCE 2022; 4:1497. [PMID: 36382113 PMCID: PMC9662604 DOI: 10.33011/livecoms.4.1.1497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/01/2023]
Abstract
Free energy calculations are rapidly becoming indispensable in structure-enabled drug discovery programs. As new methods, force fields, and implementations are developed, assessing their expected accuracy on real-world systems (benchmarking) becomes critical to provide users with an assessment of the accuracy expected when these methods are applied within their domain of applicability, and developers with a way to assess the expected impact of new methodologies. These assessments require construction of a benchmark-a set of well-prepared, high quality systems with corresponding experimental measurements designed to ensure the resulting calculations provide a realistic assessment of expected performance when these methods are deployed within their domains of applicability. To date, the community has not yet adopted a common standardized benchmark, and existing benchmark reports suffer from a myriad of issues, including poor data quality, limited statistical power, and statistically deficient analyses, all of which can conspire to produce benchmarks that are poorly predictive of real-world performance. Here, we address these issues by presenting guidelines for (1) curating experimental data to develop meaningful benchmark sets, (2) preparing benchmark inputs according to best practices to facilitate widespread adoption, and (3) analysis of the resulting predictions to enable statistically meaningful comparisons among methods and force fields. We highlight challenges and open questions that remain to be solved in these areas, as well as recommendations for the collection of new datasets that might optimally serve to measure progress as methods become systematically more reliable. Finally, we provide a curated, versioned, open, standardized benchmark set adherent to these standards (PLBenchmarks) and an open source toolkit for implementing standardized best practices assessments (arsenic) for the community to use as a standardized assessment tool. While our main focus is free energy methods based on molecular simulations, these guidelines should prove useful for assessment of the rapidly growing field of machine learning methods for affinity prediction as well.
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Affiliation(s)
- David F. Hahn
- Computational Chemistry,Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
| | | | - Melissa L. Boby
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065 USA
| | - Hannah E. Bruce Macdonald
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065 USA
- MSD R&D Innovation Centre, 120 Moorgate, London EC2M 6UR, United Kingdom
| | - John D. Chodera
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065 USA
| | - Vytautas Gapsys
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Antonia S. J. S. Mey
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, David Brewster Road, Joseph Black Building, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | - David L. Mobley
- Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA USA
| | - Laura Perez Benito
- Computational Chemistry,Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
| | | | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry,Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
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11
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Feng M, Heinzelmann G, Gilson MK. Absolute binding free energy calculations improve enrichment of actives in virtual compound screening. Sci Rep 2022; 12:13640. [PMID: 35948614 PMCID: PMC9365818 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-17480-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2022] [Accepted: 07/26/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
We determined the effectiveness of absolute binding free energy (ABFE) calculations to refine the selection of active compounds in virtual compound screening, a setting where the more commonly used relative binding free energy approach is not readily applicable. To do this, we conducted baseline docking calculations of structurally diverse compounds in the DUD-E database for three targets, BACE1, CDK2 and thrombin, followed by ABFE calculations for compounds with high docking scores. The docking calculations alone achieved solid enrichment of active compounds over decoys. Encouragingly, the ABFE calculations then improved on this baseline. Analysis of the results emphasizes the importance of establishing high quality ligand poses as starting points for ABFE calculations, a nontrivial goal when processing a library of diverse compounds without informative co-crystal structures. Overall, our results suggest that ABFE calculations can play a valuable role in the drug discovery process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mudong Feng
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Germano Heinzelmann
- Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil
| | - Michael K Gilson
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
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12
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Patel S, Bansoad AV, Singh R, Khatik GL. BACE1: A Key Regulator in Alzheimer's Disease Progression and Current Development of its Inhibitors. Curr Neuropharmacol 2022; 20:1174-1193. [PMID: 34852746 PMCID: PMC9886827 DOI: 10.2174/1570159x19666211201094031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2021] [Revised: 11/26/2021] [Accepted: 11/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease with no specific disease-modifying treatment. β-secretase (BACE1) is considered the potential and rationale target because it is involved in the rate-limiting step, which produces toxic Aβ42 peptides that leads to deposits in the form of amyloid plaques extracellularly, resulting in AD. OBJECTIVE This study aims to discuss the role and implications of BACE1 and its inhibitors in the management of AD. METHODS We have searched and collected the relevant quality work from PubMed using the following keywords "BACE1", BACE2", "inhibitors", and "Alzheimer's disease". In addition, we included the work which discusses the role of BACE1 in AD and the recent work on its inhibitors. RESULTS In this review, we have discussed the importance of BACE1 in regulating AD progression and the current development of BACE1 inhibitors. However, the development of a BACE1 inhibitor is very challenging due to the large active site of BACE1. Nevertheless, some of the BACE1 inhibitors have managed to enter advanced phases of clinical trials, such as MK-8931 (Verubecestat), E2609 (Elenbecestat), AZD3293 (Lanabecestat), and JNJ-54861911 (Atabecestat). This review also sheds light on the prospect of BACE1 inhibitors as the most effective therapeutic approach in delaying or preventing AD progression. CONCLUSION BACE1 is involved in the progression of AD. The current ongoing or failed clinical trials may help understand the role of BACE1 inhibition in regulating the Aβ load and cognitive status of AD patients.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ankush Vardhaman Bansoad
- Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research-Raebareli, New Transit Campus, Bijnor-Sisendi Road, Sarojini Nagar, Near CRPF Base Camp, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), 226002, India
| | - Rakesh Singh
- Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research-Raebareli, New Transit Campus, Bijnor-Sisendi Road, Sarojini Nagar, Near CRPF Base Camp, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), 226002, India
| | - Gopal L. Khatik
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, ,Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research- Raebareli, New Transit Campus, Bijnor-Sisendi Road, Sarojini Nagar, Near CRPF Base Camp, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, 226002; E-mail: ,
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13
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Wan S, Bhati AP, Wright DW, Wall ID, Graves AP, Green D, Coveney PV. Ensemble Simulations and Experimental Free Energy Distributions: Evaluation and Characterization of Isoxazole Amides as SMYD3 Inhibitors. J Chem Inf Model 2022; 62:2561-2570. [PMID: 35508076 PMCID: PMC9131449 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.2c00255] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Optimization of binding affinities for ligands to their target protein is a primary objective in rational drug discovery. Herein, we report on a collaborative study that evaluates various compounds designed to bind to the SET and MYND domain-containing protein 3 (SMYD3). SMYD3 is a histone methyltransferase and plays an important role in transcriptional regulation in cell proliferation, cell cycle, and human carcinogenesis. Experimental measurements using the scintillation proximity assay show that the distributions of binding free energies from a large number of independent measurements exhibit non-normal properties. We use ESMACS (enhanced sampling of molecular dynamics with approximation of continuum solvent) and TIES (thermodynamic integration with enhanced sampling) protocols to predict the binding free energies and to provide a detailed chemical insight into the nature of ligand-protein binding. Our results show that the 1-trajectory ESMACS protocol works well for the set of ligands studied here. Although one unexplained outlier exists, we obtain excellent statistical ranking across the set of compounds from the ESMACS protocol and good agreement between calculations and experiments for the relative binding free energies from the TIES protocol. ESMACS and TIES are again found to be powerful protocols for the accurate comparison of the binding free energies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shunzhou Wan
- Centre for Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K
| | - Agastya P Bhati
- Centre for Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K
| | - David W Wright
- Centre for Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K
| | - Ian D Wall
- GlaxoSmithKline, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2NY, U.K
| | - Alan P Graves
- GlaxoSmithKline, 1250 South Collegeville Road, Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426, United States
| | - Darren Green
- GlaxoSmithKline, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2NY, U.K
| | - Peter V Coveney
- Centre for Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K.,Advanced Research Computing Centre, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ U.K.,Institute for Informatics, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, 1098XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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14
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Liang L, Liu H, Xing G, Deng C, Hua Y, Gu R, Lu T, Chen Y, Zhang Y. Accurate calculation of absolute free energy of binding for SHP2 allosteric inhibitors using free energy perturbation. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2022; 24:9904-9920. [PMID: 35416820 DOI: 10.1039/d2cp00405d] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Accurate prediction of binding affinity is a primary objective in structure-based drug discovery. A free energy perturbation (FEP) method based on molecular dynamics simulation shows great promise for protein-ligand binding affinity predictions. However, accurate calculation of binding affinity for allosteric inhibitors remains unknown and elusive, which hampers the discovery of allosteric inhibitors. Allosteric inhibitors exhibit several significant advantages over orthosteric inhibitors including higher specificity and lower side effects. Allosteric inhibitors against SHP2 are thought to be beneficial not only for diseases related to metabolism, but also for cancer, which make SHP2 a potential drug target. However, high structural sensitivity makes structural optimization of SHP2 allosteric inhibitors face challenges. Herein, we calculated the absolute binding free energy of SHP2 allosteric inhibitors using the FEP method by employing different λ-windows/simulation time sampling strategies. A simulation run with 32 λ-windows/64 ps sampling strategy delivered an excellent correlation (r = 0.96) and an unprecedented low mean absolute error of 0.5 kcal mol-1 between predicted binding free energies and experimental ones, outperforming the MM/PBSA method. Our study demonstrates the possibility to accurately calculate the absolute binding free energy of allosteric inhibitors using FEP, which offers exciting prospects for the discovery of more effective allosteric inhibitors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Liang
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Haichun Liu
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Guomeng Xing
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Chenglong Deng
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Yi Hua
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Rui Gu
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Tao Lu
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China. .,State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, China
| | - Yadong Chen
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
| | - Yanmin Zhang
- Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Nanjing 211198, China.
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15
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Pan X, Wang H, Zhang Y, Wang X, Li C, Ji C, Zhang JZH. AA-Score: a New Scoring Function Based on Amino Acid-Specific Interaction for Molecular Docking. J Chem Inf Model 2022; 62:2499-2509. [PMID: 35452230 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01537] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
The protein-ligand scoring function plays an important role in computer-aided drug discovery and is heavily used in virtual screening and lead optimization. In this study, we developed a new empirical protein-ligand scoring function with amino acid-specific interaction components for hydrogen bond, van der Waals, and electrostatic interactions. In addition, hydrophobic, π-stacking, π-cation, and metal-ligand interactions are also included in the new scoring function. To better evaluate the performance of the AA-Score, we generated several new test sets for evaluation of scoring, ranking, and docking performances, respectively. Extensive tests show that AA-Score performs well on scoring, docking, and ranking as compared to other widely used traditional scoring functions. The performance improvement of AA-Score benefits from the decomposition of individual interaction into amino acid-specific types. To facilitate applications, we developed an easy-to-use tool to analyze protein-ligand interaction fingerprint and predict binding affinity using the AA-Score. The source code and associated running examples can be found at https://github.com/xundrug/AA-Score-Tool.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaolin Pan
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics & New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.,NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Hao Wang
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics & New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.,NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Yueqing Zhang
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics & New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.,NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Xingyu Wang
- NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Cuiyu Li
- Advanced Computing East China Sub-center, Suma Technology Co., Ltd., Kunshan 215300, China
| | - Changge Ji
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics & New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.,NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - John Z H Zhang
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics & New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.,CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China.,Faculty of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.,NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China.,Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York 10003, United States.,Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan Shanxi 030006, China
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16
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Bhati A, Coveney PV. Large Scale Study of Ligand-Protein Relative Binding Free Energy Calculations: Actionable Predictions from Statistically Robust Protocols. J Chem Theory Comput 2022; 18:2687-2702. [PMID: 35293737 PMCID: PMC9009079 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.1c01288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
The accurate and reliable prediction of protein-ligand binding affinities can play a central role in the drug discovery process as well as in personalized medicine. Of considerable importance during lead optimization are the alchemical free energy methods that furnish an estimation of relative binding free energies (RBFE) of similar molecules. Recent advances in these methods have increased their speed, accuracy, and precision. This is evident from the increasing number of retrospective as well as prospective studies employing them. However, such methods still have limited applicability in real-world scenarios due to a number of important yet unresolved issues. Here, we report the findings from a large data set comprising over 500 ligand transformations spanning over 300 ligands binding to a diverse set of 14 different protein targets which furnish statistically robust results on the accuracy, precision, and reproducibility of RBFE calculations. We use ensemble-based methods which are the only way to provide reliable uncertainty quantification given that the underlying molecular dynamics is chaotic. These are implemented using TIES (Thermodynamic Integration with Enhanced Sampling). Results achieve chemical accuracy in all cases. Ensemble simulations also furnish information on the statistical distributions of the free energy calculations which exhibit non-normal behavior. We find that the "enhanced sampling" method known as replica exchange with solute tempering degrades RBFE predictions. We also report definitively on numerous associated alchemical factors including the choice of ligand charge method, flexibility in ligand structure, and the size of the alchemical region including the number of atoms involved in transforming one ligand into another. Our findings provide a key set of recommendations that should be adopted for the reliable application of RBFE methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Agastya
P. Bhati
- Centre
for Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, United Kingdom
| | - Peter V. Coveney
- Centre
for Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, United Kingdom
- Informatics
Institute, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 94323, 1090 GH Amsterdam, Netherlands
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17
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Tresadern G, Tatikola K, Cabrera J, Wang L, Abel R, van Vlijmen H, Geys H. The Impact of Experimental and Calculated Error on the Performance of Affinity Predictions. J Chem Inf Model 2022; 62:703-717. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01214] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Kanaka Tatikola
- Nonclinical Statistics, Janssen Research & Development, 920 Route 202 South, Raritan, New Jersey 08869, United States
| | - Javier Cabrera
- Department of Statistics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8554, United States
| | - Lingle Wang
- Schrödinger, Inc., New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Robert Abel
- Schrödinger, Inc., New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Herman van Vlijmen
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Helena Geys
- Nonclinical Statistics, Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
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18
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Dilebo KB, Gumede NJ, Nxumalo W, Matsebatlela TM, Mangokoana D, Moraone NR, Omondi B, Mampa RM. Synthesis, in vitro cytotoxic, anti-Mycobacterium tuberculosis and molecular docking studies of 4-pyridylamino- and 4-(ethynylpyridine)quinazolines. J Mol Struct 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molstruc.2021.130824] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
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19
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Khalak Y, Tresadern G, Aldeghi M, Baumann HM, Mobley DL, de Groot BL, Gapsys V. Alchemical absolute protein-ligand binding free energies for drug design. Chem Sci 2021; 12:13958-13971. [PMID: 34760182 PMCID: PMC8549785 DOI: 10.1039/d1sc03472c] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2021] [Accepted: 09/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The recent advances in relative protein-ligand binding free energy calculations have shown the value of alchemical methods in drug discovery. Accurately assessing absolute binding free energies, although highly desired, remains a challenging endeavour, mostly limited to small model cases. Here, we demonstrate accurate first principles based absolute binding free energy estimates for 128 pharmaceutically relevant targets. We use a novel rigorous method to generate protein-ligand ensembles for the ligand in its decoupled state. Not only do the calculations deliver accurate protein-ligand binding affinity estimates, but they also provide detailed physical insight into the structural determinants of binding. We identify subtle rotamer rearrangements between apo and holo states of a protein that are crucial for binding. When compared to relative binding free energy calculations, obtaining absolute binding free energies is considerably more challenging in large part due to the need to explicitly account for the protein in its apo state. In this work we present several approaches to obtain apo state ensembles for accurate absolute ΔG calculations, thus outlining protocols for prospective application of the methods for drug discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Y Khalak
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37077 Göttingen Germany
| | - G Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V. Turnhoutseweg 30 2340 Beerse Belgium
| | - M Aldeghi
- MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge MA 02139 USA
| | - H M Baumann
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California Irvine CA 92697 USA
| | - D L Mobley
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California Irvine CA 92697 USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of California Irvine CA 92697 USA
| | - B L de Groot
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37077 Göttingen Germany
| | - V Gapsys
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37077 Göttingen Germany
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20
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Blaber S, Louwerse MD, Sivak DA. Steps minimize dissipation in rapidly driven stochastic systems. Phys Rev E 2021; 104:L022101. [PMID: 34525515 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.104.l022101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2021] [Accepted: 07/09/2021] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
Micro- and nanoscale systems driven by rapid changes in control parameters (control protocols) dissipate significant energy. In the fast-protocol limit, we find that protocols that minimize dissipation at fixed duration are universally given by a two-step process, jumping to and from a point that balances jump size with fast relaxation. Jump protocols could be exploited by molecular machines or thermodynamic computing to improve energetic efficiency, and implemented in nonequilibrium free-energy estimation to improve accuracy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven Blaber
- Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
| | - Miranda D Louwerse
- Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
| | - David A Sivak
- Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
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21
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Titov IY, Stroylov VS, Rusina P, Svitanko IV. Preliminary modelling as the first stage of targeted organic synthesis. RUSSIAN CHEMICAL REVIEWS 2021. [DOI: 10.1070/rcr5012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The review aims to present a classification and applicability analysis of methods for preliminary molecular modelling for targeted organic, catalytic and biocatalytic synthesis. The following three main approaches are considered as a primary classification of the methods: modelling of the target – ligand coordination without structural information on both the target and the resulting complex; calculations based on experimentally obtained structural information about the target; and dynamic simulation of the target – ligand complex and the reaction mechanism with calculation of the free energy of the reaction. The review is meant for synthetic chemists to be used as a guide for building an algorithm for preliminary modelling and synthesis of structures with specified properties.
The bibliography includes 353 references.
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22
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Cappel D, Mozziconacci JC, Braun T, Steinbrecher T. Performance of Relative Binding Free Energy Calculations on an Automatically Generated Dataset of Halogen-Deshalogen Matched Molecular Pairs. J Chem Inf Model 2021; 61:3421-3430. [PMID: 34170707 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c00290] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
In this study, we generated a matched molecular pair dataset of halogen/deshalogen compounds with reliable binding affinity data and structural binding mode information from public databases. The workflow includes automated system preparation and setup of free energy perturbation relative binding free energy calculations. We demonstrate the suitability of these datasets to investigate the performance of molecular mechanics force fields and molecular simulation algorithms for the purpose of in silico affinity predictions in lead optimization. Our datasets of a total of 115 matched molecular pairs show highly accurate binding free energy predictions with an average error of <1 kcal/mol despite the semi-automated calculation scheme. We quantify the accuracy of the optimized potential for liquid simulations (OPLS) force field to predict the effect of halogen addition to compounds, a commonly employed chemical modification in the design of drug-like molecules.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Cappel
- Schrödinger GmbH, Glücksteinallee 25, 68163 Mannheim, Germany
| | | | - Tatjana Braun
- Schrödinger GmbH, Thierschstraße 27, 80538 München, Germany
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23
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Hügel HM, de Silva NH, Siddiqui A, Blanch E, Lingham A. Natural spirocyclic alkaloids and polyphenols as multi target dementia leads. Bioorg Med Chem 2021; 43:116270. [PMID: 34153839 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmc.2021.116270] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2021] [Revised: 05/25/2021] [Accepted: 06/04/2021] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
The U rhynchophylla, U tomentosa, Isatis indigotica Fortune, Voacanga Africana, herbal constituents, fungal extracts from Aspergillus duricaulis culture media, include spirooxindoles, polyphenols or bridged spirocyclic alkaloids. Their constituents exhibit specific and synergistic multiple neuroprotective properties including inhibiting of Aβ fibril induced cytotoxicity, NMDA receptor inhibition in mice models of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The pioneering research from Woodward to Waldmann has advanced the synthesis of spirocyclic alkaloids. Furthermore, the elucidation of the genetic analysis, biochemical pathways that links strictosidine to the alkaloids akuammicine, stemmadenine, tabersonine, catharanthine, will now enable the biotechnological generation, also stimulate synthesis of related bridged spirocyclic alkaloids for medicinal investigations. From the value of spirocyclic structures as multi target dementia leads, we hypothesise that simpler Lipinski-like natural/synthetic alkaloid analogues may likewise be discovered that provide neurocognitive enhancing activities against dementia and AD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helmut M Hügel
- Applied Chemistry & Environmental Science, School of Science, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia.
| | - Nilamuni H de Silva
- Applied Chemistry & Environmental Science, School of Science, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia
| | - Aimen Siddiqui
- Applied Chemistry & Environmental Science, School of Science, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia
| | - Ewan Blanch
- Applied Chemistry & Environmental Science, School of Science, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia
| | - Anthony Lingham
- Applied Chemistry & Environmental Science, School of Science, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia
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24
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Lu C, Wu C, Ghoreishi D, Chen W, Wang L, Damm W, Ross GA, Dahlgren MK, Russell E, Von Bargen CD, Abel R, Friesner RA, Harder ED. OPLS4: Improving Force Field Accuracy on Challenging Regimes of Chemical Space. J Chem Theory Comput 2021; 17:4291-4300. [PMID: 34096718 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.1c00302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 507] [Impact Index Per Article: 169.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Chao Lu
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Chuanjie Wu
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Delaram Ghoreishi
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Wei Chen
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Lingle Wang
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Wolfgang Damm
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Gregory A. Ross
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Markus K. Dahlgren
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Ellery Russell
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | | | - Robert Abel
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Richard A. Friesner
- Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, 3000 Broadway, New York, New York 10027, United States
| | - Edward D. Harder
- Schrodinger, Incorporated, 120 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
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25
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Blaber S, Sivak DA. Skewed thermodynamic geometry and optimal free energy estimation. J Chem Phys 2020; 153:244119. [PMID: 33380076 DOI: 10.1063/5.0033405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Free energy differences are a central quantity of interest in physics, chemistry, and biology. We develop design principles that improve the precision and accuracy of free energy estimators, which have potential applications to screening for targeted drug discovery. Specifically, by exploiting the connection between the work statistics of time-reversed protocol pairs, we develop near-equilibrium approximations for moments of the excess work and analyze the dominant contributions to the precision and accuracy of standard nonequilibrium free-energy estimators. Within linear response, minimum-dissipation protocols follow the geodesics of the Riemannian metric induced by the Stokes friction tensor. We find that the next-order contribution arises from the rank-3 supra-Stokes tensor that skews the geometric structure such that minimum-dissipation protocols follow the geodesics of a generalized cubic Finsler metric. Thus, near equilibrium, the supra-Stokes tensor determines the leading-order contribution to the bias of bidirectional free-energy estimators.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven Blaber
- Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
| | - David A Sivak
- Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
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26
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Ngo ST, Quynh Anh Pham N, Thi Le L, Pham DH, Vu VV. Computational Determination of Potential Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease. J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:5771-5780. [PMID: 32530282 PMCID: PMC7323056 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00491] [Citation(s) in RCA: 94] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has infected several million people and caused thousands of deaths worldwide since December 2019. As the disease is spreading rapidly all over the world, it is urgent to find effective drugs to treat the virus. The main protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2 is one of the potential drug targets. Therefore, in this context, we used rigorous computational methods, including molecular docking, fast pulling of ligand (FPL), and free energy perturbation (FEP), to investigate potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. We first tested our approach with three reported inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro, and our computational results are in good agreement with the respective experimental data. Subsequently, we applied our approach on a database of ∼4600 natural compounds, as well as 8 available HIV-1 protease (PR) inhibitors and an aza-peptide epoxide. Molecular docking resulted in a short list of 35 natural compounds, which was subsequently refined using the FPL scheme. FPL simulations resulted in five potential inhibitors, including three natural compounds and two available HIV-1 PR inhibitors. Finally, FEP, the most accurate and precise method, was used to determine the absolute binding free energy of these five compounds. FEP results indicate that two natural compounds, cannabisin A and isoacteoside, and an HIV-1 PR inhibitor, darunavir, exhibit a large binding free energy to SARS-CoV-2 Mpro, which is larger than that of 13b, the most reliable SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitor recently reported. The binding free energy largely arises from van der Waals interaction. We also found that Glu166 forms H-bonds to all of the inhibitors. Replacing Glu166 by an alanine residue leads to ∼2.0 kcal/mol decreases in the affinity of darunavir to SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. Our results could contribute to the development of potential drugs inhibiting SARS-CoV-2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Son Tung Ngo
- Laboratory of Theoretical and
Computational Biophysics, Ton Duc Thang
University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000,
Vietnam
- Faculty of Applied Sciences,
Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh
City 700000, Vietnam
| | - Ngoc Quynh Anh Pham
- Faculty of Chemical Engineering,
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology
(HCMUT), Ho Chi Minh City 700000,
Vietnam
| | - Ly Thi Le
- School of Biotechnology,
International University, Ho Chi Minh
Ciy 700000, Vietnam
| | - Duc-Hung Pham
- Division of Immunobiology,
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical
Center, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229, United
States
| | - Van V. Vu
- NTT Hi-Tech Institute, Nguyen
Tat Thanh University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000,
Vietnam
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27
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Albanese SK, Chodera JD, Volkamer A, Keng S, Abel R, Wang L. Is Structure-Based Drug Design Ready for Selectivity Optimization? J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:6211-6227. [PMID: 33119284 PMCID: PMC8310368 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00815] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
Alchemical free-energy calculations are now widely used to drive or maintain potency in small-molecule lead optimization with a roughly 1 kcal/mol accuracy. Despite this, the potential to use free-energy calculations to drive optimization of compound selectivity among two similar targets has been relatively unexplored in published studies. In the most optimistic scenario, the similarity of binding sites might lead to a fortuitous cancellation of errors and allow selectivity to be predicted more accurately than affinity. Here, we assess the accuracy with which selectivity can be predicted in the context of small-molecule kinase inhibitors, considering the very similar binding sites of human kinases CDK2 and CDK9 as well as another series of ligands attempting to achieve selectivity between the more distantly related kinases CDK2 and ERK2. Using a Bayesian analysis approach, we separate systematic from statistical errors and quantify the correlation in systematic errors between selectivity targets. We find that, in the CDK2/CDK9 case, a high correlation in systematic errors suggests that free-energy calculations can have significant impact in aiding chemists in achieving selectivity, while in more distantly related kinases (CDK2/ERK2), the correlation in systematic error suggests that fortuitous cancellation may even occur between systems that are not as closely related. In both cases, the correlation in systematic error suggests that longer simulations are beneficial to properly balance statistical error with systematic error to take full advantage of the increase in apparent free-energy calculation accuracy in selectivity prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven K. Albanese
- Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065
| | - John D. Chodera
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065
| | - Andrea Volkamer
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin
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28
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Tresadern G, Velter I, Trabanco AA, Van den Keybus F, Macdonald GJ, Somers MVF, Vanhoof G, Leonard PM, Lamers MBAC, Van Roosbroeck YEM, Buijnsters PJJA. [1,2,4]Triazolo[1,5- a]pyrimidine Phosphodiesterase 2A Inhibitors: Structure and Free-Energy Perturbation-Guided Exploration. J Med Chem 2020; 63:12887-12910. [PMID: 33105987 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.0c01272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
We describe the hit-to-lead exploration of a [1,2,4]triazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine phosphodiesterase 2A (PDE2A) inhibitor arising from high-throughput screening. X-ray crystallography enabled structure-guided design, leading to the identification of preferred substructural components. Further rounds of optimization used relative binding free-energy calculations to prioritize different substituents from the large accessible chemical space. The free-energy perturbation (FEP) calculations were performed for 265 putative PDE2A inhibitors, and 100 compounds were synthesized representing a relatively large prospective application providing unexpectedly active molecules with IC50's from 2340 to 0.89 nM. Lead compound 46 originating from the FEP calculations showed PDE2A inhibition IC50 of 1.3 ± 0.39 nM, ∼100-fold selectivity versus other PDE enzymes, clean cytochrome P450 profile, in vivo target occupancy, and promise for further lead optimization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Ingrid Velter
- Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Andrés A Trabanco
- Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen-Cilag S. A., Jarama 75A, 45007 Toledo, Spain
| | - Frans Van den Keybus
- Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Gregor J Macdonald
- Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Marijke V F Somers
- Discovery Sciences, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Greet Vanhoof
- Discovery Sciences, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Philip M Leonard
- Structural Biology, Charles River Discovery (Previously BioFocus), Chesterford Research Park, Saffron Walden, CB10 1XL Essex, U.K
| | - Marieke B A C Lamers
- Structural Biology, Charles River Discovery (Previously BioFocus), Chesterford Research Park, Saffron Walden, CB10 1XL Essex, U.K
| | | | - Peter J J A Buijnsters
- Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
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29
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Bao J, He X, Zhang JZ. Development of a New Scoring Function for Virtual Screening: APBScore. J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:6355-6365. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00474] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jingxiao Bao
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics and New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Xiao He
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics and New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
- NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry, NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - John Z.H. Zhang
- Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics and New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
- NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry, NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
- Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, New York 10003, United States
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China
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30
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Zhuang Y, Bureau HR, Quirk S, Hernandez R. Adaptive steered molecular dynamics of biomolecules. MOLECULAR SIMULATION 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/08927022.2020.1807542] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Yi Zhuang
- Department of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Hailey R. Bureau
- Department of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
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31
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Wei W, Chen Y, Ma J, Xie D, Zhou Y. Computational determination of binding modes of 2-acetoxyphenylhept-2-ynyl sulfide to cyclooxygenase-2. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2020; 38:3648-3658. [DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2019.1666033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Wanqing Wei
- Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yani Chen
- Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Jing Ma
- Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Daiqian Xie
- Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yanzi Zhou
- Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
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32
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Deflorian F, Perez-Benito L, Lenselink EB, Congreve M, van Vlijmen HWT, Mason JS, Graaf CD, Tresadern G. Accurate Prediction of GPCR Ligand Binding Affinity with Free Energy Perturbation. J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:5563-5579. [PMID: 32539374 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00449] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
The computational prediction of relative binding free energies is a crucial goal for drug discovery, and G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are arguably the most important drug target class. However, they present increased complexity to model compared to soluble globular proteins. Despite breakthroughs, experimental X-ray crystal and cryo-EM structures are challenging to attain, meaning computational models of the receptor and ligand binding mode are sometimes necessary. This leads to uncertainty in understanding ligand-protein binding induced changes such as, water positioning and displacement, side chain positioning, hydrogen bond networks, and the overall structure of the hydration shell around the ligand and protein. In other words, the very elements that define structure activity relationships (SARs) and are crucial for accurate binding free energy calculations are typically more uncertain for GPCRs. In this work we use free energy perturbation (FEP) to predict the relative binding free energies for ligands of two different GPCRs. We pinpoint the key aspects for success such as the important role of key water molecules, amino acid ionization states, and the benefit of equilibration with specific ligands. Initial calculations following typical FEP setup and execution protocols delivered no correlation with experiment, but we show how results are improved in a logical and systematic way. This approach gave, in the best cases, a coefficient of determination (R2) compared with experiment in the range of 0.6-0.9 and mean unsigned errors compared to experiment of 0.6-0.7 kcal/mol. We anticipate that our findings will be applicable to other difficult-to-model protein ligand data sets and be of wide interest for the community to continue improving FE binding energy predictions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Deflorian
- Sosei Heptares, Steinmetz Building, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB21 6DG United Kingdom
| | - Laura Perez-Benito
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Eelke B Lenselink
- Division of Medicinal Chemistry, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, Leiden University, Leiden 2300, RA, The Netherlands
| | - Miles Congreve
- Sosei Heptares, Steinmetz Building, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB21 6DG United Kingdom
| | - Herman W T van Vlijmen
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Jonathan S Mason
- Sosei Heptares, Steinmetz Building, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB21 6DG United Kingdom
| | - Chris de Graaf
- Sosei Heptares, Steinmetz Building, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB21 6DG United Kingdom
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium
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33
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Paulsen JL, Yu HS, Sindhikara D, Wang L, Appleby T, Villaseñor AG, Schmitz U, Shivakumar D. Evaluation of Free Energy Calculations for the Prioritization of Macrocycle Synthesis. J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:3489-3498. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00132] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Janet L. Paulsen
- Schrödinger, Inc., 120 West 45th Street, 17th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Haoyu S. Yu
- Schrödinger, Inc., 120 West 45th Street, 17th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Dan Sindhikara
- Schrödinger, Inc., 120 West 45th Street, 17th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Lingle Wang
- Schrödinger, Inc., 120 West 45th Street, 17th Floor, New York, New York 10036, United States
| | - Todd Appleby
- Gilead, 333 Lakeside Drive, Foster City, California 94404, United States
| | | | - Uli Schmitz
- Gilead, 333 Lakeside Drive, Foster City, California 94404, United States
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34
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Rizzi A, Jensen T, Slochower DR, Aldeghi M, Gapsys V, Ntekoumes D, Bosisio S, Papadourakis M, Henriksen NM, de Groot BL, Cournia Z, Dickson A, Michel J, Gilson MK, Shirts MR, Mobley DL, Chodera JD. The SAMPL6 SAMPLing challenge: assessing the reliability and efficiency of binding free energy calculations. J Comput Aided Mol Des 2020; 34:601-633. [PMID: 31984465 DOI: 10.1007/s10822-020-00290-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2019] [Accepted: 01/13/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Approaches for computing small molecule binding free energies based on molecular simulations are now regularly being employed by academic and industry practitioners to study receptor-ligand systems and prioritize the synthesis of small molecules for ligand design. Given the variety of methods and implementations available, it is natural to ask how the convergence rates and final predictions of these methods compare. In this study, we describe the concept and results for the SAMPL6 SAMPLing challenge, the first challenge from the SAMPL series focusing on the assessment of convergence properties and reproducibility of binding free energy methodologies. We provided parameter files, partial charges, and multiple initial geometries for two octa-acid (OA) and one cucurbit[8]uril (CB8) host-guest systems. Participants submitted binding free energy predictions as a function of the number of force and energy evaluations for seven different alchemical and physical-pathway (i.e., potential of mean force and weighted ensemble of trajectories) methodologies implemented with the GROMACS, AMBER, NAMD, or OpenMM simulation engines. To rank the methods, we developed an efficiency statistic based on bias and variance of the free energy estimates. For the two small OA binders, the free energy estimates computed with alchemical and potential of mean force approaches show relatively similar variance and bias as a function of the number of energy/force evaluations, with the attach-pull-release (APR), GROMACS expanded ensemble, and NAMD double decoupling submissions obtaining the greatest efficiency. The differences between the methods increase when analyzing the CB8-quinine system, where both the guest size and correlation times for system dynamics are greater. For this system, nonequilibrium switching (GROMACS/NS-DS/SB) obtained the overall highest efficiency. Surprisingly, the results suggest that specifying force field parameters and partial charges is insufficient to generally ensure reproducibility, and we observe differences between seemingly converged predictions ranging approximately from 0.3 to 1.0 kcal/mol, even with almost identical simulations parameters and system setup (e.g., Lennard-Jones cutoff, ionic composition). Further work will be required to completely identify the exact source of these discrepancies. Among the conclusions emerging from the data, we found that Hamiltonian replica exchange-while displaying very small variance-can be affected by a slowly-decaying bias that depends on the initial population of the replicas, that bidirectional estimators are significantly more efficient than unidirectional estimators for nonequilibrium free energy calculations for systems considered, and that the Berendsen barostat introduces non-negligible artifacts in expanded ensemble simulations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Rizzi
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
- Tri-Institutional Training Program in Computational Biology and Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
| | - Travis Jensen
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA
| | - David R Slochower
- Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Matteo Aldeghi
- Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Vytautas Gapsys
- Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Dimitris Ntekoumes
- Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, 4 Soranou Ephessiou, 11527, Athens, Greece
| | - Stefano Bosisio
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, David Brewster Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | - Michail Papadourakis
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, David Brewster Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | - Niel M Henriksen
- Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
- Atomwise, 717 Market St Suite 800, San Francisco, CA, 94103, USA
| | - Bert L de Groot
- Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Zoe Cournia
- Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, 4 Soranou Ephessiou, 11527, Athens, Greece
| | - Alex Dickson
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
- Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Julien Michel
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, David Brewster Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | - Michael K Gilson
- Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Michael R Shirts
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA
| | - David L Mobley
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, California, 92697, USA.
| | - John D Chodera
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
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35
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Mouchlis VD, Melagraki G, Zacharia LC, Afantitis A. Computer-Aided Drug Design of β-Secretase, γ-Secretase and Anti-Tau Inhibitors for the Discovery of Novel Alzheimer's Therapeutics. Int J Mol Sci 2020; 21:E703. [PMID: 31973122 PMCID: PMC7038192 DOI: 10.3390/ijms21030703] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2019] [Revised: 01/15/2020] [Accepted: 01/17/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases, which are characterized by progressive neuronal death and synapses loss in human brain, are rapidly growing affecting millions of people globally. Alzheimer's is the most common neurodegenerative disease and it can be caused by genetic and environmental risk factors. This review describes the amyloid-β and Tau hypotheses leading to amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, respectively which are the predominant pathways for the development of anti-Alzheimer's small molecule inhibitors. The function and structure of the druggable targets of these two pathways including β-secretase, γ-secretase, and Tau are discussed in this review article. Computer-Aided Drug Design including computational structure-based design and ligand-based design have been employed successfully to develop inhibitors for biomolecular targets involved in Alzheimer's. The application of computational molecular modeling for the discovery of small molecule inhibitors and modulators for β-secretase and γ-secretase is summarized. Examples of computational approaches employed for the development of anti-amyloid aggregation and anti-Tau phosphorylation, proteolysis and aggregation inhibitors are also reported.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Georgia Melagraki
- Division of Physical Sciences & Applications, Hellenic Military Academy, Vari 16672, Greece;
| | - Lefteris C. Zacharia
- Department of Life and Health Sciences, University of Nicosia, Nicosia 1700, Cyprus;
| | - Antreas Afantitis
- Department of ChemoInformatics, NovaMechanics Ltd., Nicosia 1046, Cyprus
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36
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Hu X, Maffucci I, Contini A. Advances in the Treatment of Explicit Water Molecules in Docking and Binding Free Energy Calculations. Curr Med Chem 2020; 26:7598-7622. [DOI: 10.2174/0929867325666180514110824] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2018] [Revised: 02/26/2018] [Accepted: 04/18/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Background:
The inclusion of direct effects mediated by water during the ligandreceptor
recognition is a hot-topic of modern computational chemistry applied to drug discovery
and development. Docking or virtual screening with explicit hydration is still debatable,
despite the successful cases that have been presented in the last years. Indeed, how to select
the water molecules that will be included in the docking process or how the included waters
should be treated remain open questions.
Objective:
In this review, we will discuss some of the most recent methods that can be used in
computational drug discovery and drug development when the effect of a single water, or of a
small network of interacting waters, needs to be explicitly considered.
Results:
Here, we analyse the software to aid the selection, or to predict the position, of water
molecules that are going to be explicitly considered in later docking studies. We also present
software and protocols able to efficiently treat flexible water molecules during docking, including
examples of applications. Finally, we discuss methods based on molecular dynamics
simulations that can be used to integrate docking studies or to reliably and efficiently compute
binding energies of ligands in presence of interfacial or bridging water molecules.
Conclusions:
Software applications aiding the design of new drugs that exploit water molecules,
either as displaceable residues or as bridges to the receptor, are constantly being developed.
Although further validation is needed, workflows that explicitly consider water will
probably become a standard for computational drug discovery soon.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiao Hu
- Università degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Sezione di Chimica Generale e Organica “A. Marchesini”, Via Venezian, 21 20133 Milano, Italy
| | - Irene Maffucci
- Pasteur, Département de Chimie, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Alessandro Contini
- Università degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Sezione di Chimica Generale e Organica “A. Marchesini”, Via Venezian, 21 20133 Milano, Italy
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37
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Wan S, Tresadern G, Pérez‐Benito L, van Vlijmen H, Coveney PV. Accuracy and Precision of Alchemical Relative Free Energy Predictions with and without Replica-Exchange. ADVANCED THEORY AND SIMULATIONS 2020; 3:1900195. [PMID: 34527855 PMCID: PMC8427472 DOI: 10.1002/adts.201900195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2019] [Revised: 10/30/2019] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
A systematic and statistically robust protocol is applied for the evaluation of free energy calculations with and without replica-exchange. The protocol is based on ensemble averaging to generate accurate assessments of the uncertainties in the predictions. Comparison is made between FEP+ and TIES-free energy perturbation and thermodynamic integration with enhanced sampling-the latter with and without the so-called "enhanced sampling" based on replica-exchange protocols. Standard TIES performs best for a reference set of targets and compounds; no benefits accrue from replica-exchange methods. Evaluation of FEP+ and TIES with REST-replica-exchange with solute tempering-reveals a systematic and significant underestimation of free energy differences in FEP+, which becomes increasingly large for long duration simulations, is confirmed by extensive analysis of previous publications, and raises a number of questions pertaining to the accuracy of the predictions with the REST technique not hitherto discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shunzhou Wan
- Centre for Computational Science, Department of ChemistryUniversity College LondonLondonWC1H 0AJUK
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & DevelopmentJanssen Pharmaceutica N. V.Turnhoutseweg 30B‐2340BeerseBelgium
| | - Laura Pérez‐Benito
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & DevelopmentJanssen Pharmaceutica N. V.Turnhoutseweg 30B‐2340BeerseBelgium
| | - Herman van Vlijmen
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & DevelopmentJanssen Pharmaceutica N. V.Turnhoutseweg 30B‐2340BeerseBelgium
| | - Peter V. Coveney
- Centre for Computational Science, Department of ChemistryUniversity College LondonLondonWC1H 0AJUK
- Computational Science LaboratoryInstitute for InformaticsFaculty of ScienceUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdam1098XHThe Netherlands
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38
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Mey ASJS, Allen BK, Macdonald HEB, Chodera JD, Hahn DF, Kuhn M, Michel J, Mobley DL, Naden LN, Prasad S, Rizzi A, Scheen J, Shirts MR, Tresadern G, Xu H. Best Practices for Alchemical Free Energy Calculations [Article v1.0]. LIVING JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL MOLECULAR SCIENCE 2020; 2:18378. [PMID: 34458687 PMCID: PMC8388617 DOI: 10.33011/livecoms.2.1.18378] [Citation(s) in RCA: 108] [Impact Index Per Article: 27.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
Alchemical free energy calculations are a useful tool for predicting free energy differences associated with the transfer of molecules from one environment to another. The hallmark of these methods is the use of "bridging" potential energy functions representing alchemical intermediate states that cannot exist as real chemical species. The data collected from these bridging alchemical thermodynamic states allows the efficient computation of transfer free energies (or differences in transfer free energies) with orders of magnitude less simulation time than simulating the transfer process directly. While these methods are highly flexible, care must be taken in avoiding common pitfalls to ensure that computed free energy differences can be robust and reproducible for the chosen force field, and that appropriate corrections are included to permit direct comparison with experimental data. In this paper, we review current best practices for several popular application domains of alchemical free energy calculations performed with equilibrium simulations, in particular relative and absolute small molecule binding free energy calculations to biomolecular targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonia S. J. S. Mey
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, David Brewster Road, Joseph Black Building, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | | | - Hannah E. Bruce Macdonald
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York NY, USA
| | - John D. Chodera
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York NY, USA
| | - David F. Hahn
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
| | - Maximilian Kuhn
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, David Brewster Road, Joseph Black Building, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
- Cresset, Cambridgeshire, UK
| | - Julien Michel
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, David Brewster Road, Joseph Black Building, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | - David L. Mobley
- Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA
| | - Levi N. Naden
- Molecular Sciences Software Institute, Blacksburg VA, USA
| | | | - Andrea Rizzi
- Silicon Therapeutics, Boston, MA, USA
- Tri-Institutional Training Program in Computational Biology and Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Jenke Scheen
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, David Brewster Road, Joseph Black Building, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK
| | | | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
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Abstract
There is significant potential for electronic structure methods to improve the quality of the predictions furnished by the tools of computer-aided drug design, which typically rely on empirically derived functions. In this perspective, we consider some recent examples of how quantum mechanics has been applied in predicting protein-ligand geometries, protein-ligand binding affinities and ligand strain on binding. We then outline several significant developments in quantum mechanics methodology likely to influence these approaches: in particular, we note the advent of more computationally expedient ab initio quantum mechanical methods that can provide chemical accuracy for larger molecular systems than hitherto possible. We highlight the emergence of increasingly accurate semiempirical quantum mechanical methods and the associated role of machine learning and molecular databases in their development. Indeed, the convergence of improved algorithms for solving and analyzing electronic structure, modern machine learning methods, and increasingly comprehensive benchmark data sets of molecular geometries and energies provides a context in which the potential of quantum mechanics will be increasingly realized in driving future developments and applications in structure-based drug discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Richard A Bryce
- Division of Pharmacy and Optometry, School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
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40
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Jiménez-Luna J, Pérez-Benito L, Martínez-Rosell G, Sciabola S, Torella R, Tresadern G, De Fabritiis G. DeltaDelta neural networks for lead optimization of small molecule potency. Chem Sci 2019; 10:10911-10918. [PMID: 32190246 PMCID: PMC7066671 DOI: 10.1039/c9sc04606b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2019] [Accepted: 10/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The capability to rank different potential drug molecules against a protein target for potency has always been a fundamental challenge in computational chemistry due to its importance in drug design. While several simulation-based methodologies exist, they are hard to use prospectively and thus predicting potency in lead optimization campaigns remains an open challenge. Here we present the first machine learning approach specifically tailored for ranking congeneric series based on deep 3D-convolutional neural networks. Furthermore we prove its effectiveness by blindly testing it on datasets provided by Janssen, Pfizer and Biogen totalling over 3246 ligands and 13 targets as well as several well-known openly available sets, representing one the largest evaluations ever performed. We also performed online learning simulations of lead optimization using the approach in a predictive manner obtaining significant advantage over experimental choice. We believe that the evaluation performed in this study is strong evidence of the usefulness of a modern deep learning model in lead optimization pipelines against more expensive simulation-based alternatives.
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Affiliation(s)
- José Jiménez-Luna
- Computational Science Laboratory , Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona , Universitat Pompeu Fabra , C Dr Aiguader 88 , Barcelona , 08003 , Spain .
| | - Laura Pérez-Benito
- Laboratori de Medicina Computacional , Unitat de Bioestadística , Facultat de Medicina , Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona , Spain
- Janssen Research and Development , Turnhoutseweg 30 , 2340 Beerse , Belgium
| | | | - Simone Sciabola
- Biogen Chemistry and Molecular Therapeutics , 115 Broadway Street , Cambridge , MA 02142 , USA
| | - Rubben Torella
- Pfizer I&I , 610 Main Street , Cambridge , MA 02139 , USA
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Janssen Research and Development , Turnhoutseweg 30 , 2340 Beerse , Belgium
| | - Gianni De Fabritiis
- Computational Science Laboratory , Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona , Universitat Pompeu Fabra , C Dr Aiguader 88 , Barcelona , 08003 , Spain .
- Acellera , Carrer del Dr Trueta, 183 , 08005 Barcelona , Spain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) , Passeig Lluis Companys 23 , 08010 Barcelona , Spain
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41
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Gapsys V, Pérez-Benito L, Aldeghi M, Seeliger D, van Vlijmen H, Tresadern G, de Groot BL. Large scale relative protein ligand binding affinities using non-equilibrium alchemy. Chem Sci 2019; 11:1140-1152. [PMID: 34084371 PMCID: PMC8145179 DOI: 10.1039/c9sc03754c] [Citation(s) in RCA: 132] [Impact Index Per Article: 26.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2019] [Accepted: 12/01/2019] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Ligand binding affinity calculations based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and non-physical (alchemical) thermodynamic cycles have shown great promise for structure-based drug design. However, their broad uptake and impact is held back by the notoriously complex setup of the calculations. Only a few tools other than the free energy perturbation approach by Schrödinger Inc. (referred to as FEP+) currently enable end-to-end application. Here, we present for the first time an approach based on the open-source software pmx that allows to easily set up and run alchemical calculations for diverse sets of small molecules using the GROMACS MD engine. The method relies on theoretically rigorous non-equilibrium thermodynamic integration (TI) foundations, and its flexibility allows calculations with multiple force fields. In this study, results from the Amber and Charmm force fields were combined to yield a consensus outcome performing on par with the commercial FEP+ approach. A large dataset of 482 perturbations from 13 different protein-ligand datasets led to an average unsigned error (AUE) of 3.64 ± 0.14 kJ mol-1, equivalent to Schrödinger's FEP+ AUE of 3.66 ± 0.14 kJ mol-1. For the first time, a setup is presented for overall high precision and high accuracy relative protein-ligand alchemical free energy calculations based on open-source software.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vytautas Gapsys
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37077 Göttingen Germany
| | - Laura Pérez-Benito
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V. Turnhoutseweg 30 B-2340 Beerse Belgium
| | - Matteo Aldeghi
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37077 Göttingen Germany
| | - Daniel Seeliger
- Medicinal Chemistry, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG Birkendorfer Strasse 65 D-88397 Biberach a.d. Riss Germany
| | - Herman van Vlijmen
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V. Turnhoutseweg 30 B-2340 Beerse Belgium
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V. Turnhoutseweg 30 B-2340 Beerse Belgium
| | - Bert L de Groot
- Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group, Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37077 Göttingen Germany
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42
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Vilseck JZ, Sohail N, Hayes RL, Brooks CL. Overcoming Challenging Substituent Perturbations with Multisite λ-Dynamics: A Case Study Targeting β-Secretase 1. J Phys Chem Lett 2019; 10:4875-4880. [PMID: 31386370 PMCID: PMC7015761 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b02004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Alchemical free energy calculations have made a dramatic impact upon the field of structure-based drug design by allowing functional group modifications to be explored computationally prior to experimental synthesis and assay evaluation, thereby informing and directing synthetic strategies. In furthering the advancement of this area, a series of 21 β-secretase 1 (BACE1) inhibitors developed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals were examined to evaluate the ability to explore large substituent perturbations, some of which contain scaffold modifications, with multisite λ-dynamics (MSλD), an innovative alchemical free energy framework. Our findings indicate that MSλD is able to efficiently explore all structurally diverse ligand end-states simultaneously within a single MD simulation with a high degree of precision and with reduced computational costs compared to the widely used approach TI/MBAR. Furthermore, computational predictions were shown to be accurate to within 0.5-0.8 kcal/mol when CM1A partial atomic charges were combined with CHARMM or OPLS-AA-based force fields, demonstrating that MSλD is force field independent and a viable alternative to FEP or TI approaches for drug design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonah Z. Vilseck
- Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
| | - Noor Sohail
- Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
| | - Ryan L. Hayes
- Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
| | - Charles L. Brooks
- Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
- Biophysics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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43
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Oehlrich D, Peschiulli A, Tresadern G, Van Gool M, Vega JA, De Lucas AI, Alonso de Diego SA, Prokopcova H, Austin N, Van Brandt S, Surkyn M, De Cleyn M, Vos A, Rombouts FJR, Macdonald G, Moechars D, Gijsen HJM, Trabanco AA. Evaluation of a Series of β-Secretase 1 Inhibitors Containing Novel Heteroaryl-Fused-Piperazine Amidine Warheads. ACS Med Chem Lett 2019; 10:1159-1165. [PMID: 31413800 DOI: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.9b00181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2019] [Accepted: 07/02/2019] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite several years of research, only a handful of β-secretase (BACE) 1 inhibitors have entered clinical trials as potential therapeutics against Alzheimer's disease. The intrinsic basic nature of low molecular weight, amidine-containing BACE 1 inhibitors makes them far from optimal as central nervous system drugs. Herein we present a set of novel heteroaryl-fused piperazine amidine inhibitors designed to lower the basicity of the key, enzyme binding, amidine functionality. This study resulted in the identification of highly potent (IC50 ≤ 10 nM), permeable lead compounds with a reduced propensity to suffer from P-glycoprotein-mediated efflux.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Michiel Van Gool
- Discovery Sciences Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen−Cilag S.A., C/Jarama 75A, 45007 Toledo, Spain
| | - Juan Antonio Vega
- Discovery Sciences Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen−Cilag S.A., C/Jarama 75A, 45007 Toledo, Spain
| | - Ana Isabel De Lucas
- Discovery Sciences Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen−Cilag S.A., C/Jarama 75A, 45007 Toledo, Spain
| | - Sergio A. Alonso de Diego
- Discovery Sciences Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen−Cilag S.A., C/Jarama 75A, 45007 Toledo, Spain
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Andrés A. Trabanco
- Discovery Sciences Medicinal Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen−Cilag S.A., C/Jarama 75A, 45007 Toledo, Spain
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44
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Song LF, Lee TS, Zhu C, York DM, Merz KM. Using AMBER18 for Relative Free Energy Calculations. J Chem Inf Model 2019; 59:3128-3135. [PMID: 31244091 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.9b00105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 121] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
With renewed interest in free energy methods in contemporary structure-based drug design, there is a pressing need to validate against multiple targets and force fields to assess the overall ability of these methods to accurately predict relative binding free energies. We computed relative binding free energies using graphics processing unit accelerated thermodynamic integration (GPU-TI) on a data set originally assembled by Schrödinger, Inc. Using their GPU free energy code (FEP+) and the OPLS2.1 force field combined with the REST2 enhanced sampling approach, these authors obtained an overall MUE of 0.9 kcal/mol and an overall RMSD of 1.14 kcal/mol. In our study using GPU-TI from AMBER with the AMBER14SB/GAFF1.8 force field but without enhanced sampling, we obtained an overall MUE of 1.17 kcal/mol and an overall RMSD of 1.50 kcal/mol for the 330 perturbations contained in this data set. A more detailed analysis of our results suggested that the observed differences between the two studies arise from differences in sampling protocols along with differences in the force fields employed. Future work should address the problem of establishing benchmark quality results with robust statistical error bars obtained through multiple independent runs and enhanced sampling, which is possible with the GPU-accelerated features in AMBER.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lin Frank Song
- Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , Michigan State University , 578 S. Shaw Lane , East Lansing , Michigan 48824 , United States
| | - Tai-Sung Lee
- Laboratory for Biomolecular Simulation Research, Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology , Rutgers University , Piscataway , New Jersey 08854 , United States
| | - Chun Zhu
- Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , Michigan State University , 578 S. Shaw Lane , East Lansing , Michigan 48824 , United States
| | - Darrin M York
- Laboratory for Biomolecular Simulation Research, Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology , Rutgers University , Piscataway , New Jersey 08854 , United States
| | - Kenneth M Merz
- Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , Michigan State University , 578 S. Shaw Lane , East Lansing , Michigan 48824 , United States.,Institute for Cyber Enabled Research , Michigan State University , 567 Wilson Road, Room 1440 , East Lansing , Michigan 48824 , United States
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45
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Sivakumar M, Saravanan K, Saravanan V, Sugarthi S, kumar SM, Alhaji Isa M, Rajakumar P, Aravindhan S. Discovery of new potential triplet acting inhibitor for Alzheimer’s disease via X-ray crystallography, molecular docking and molecular dynamics. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2019; 38:1903-1917. [DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2019.1620128] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Kandasamy Saravanan
- X-Ray Crystallography and Computational Molecular Biology Lab, Department of Physics, Periyar University, Salem, India
| | | | - Srinivasan Sugarthi
- Department of Physics and Nanotechnology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, India
| | | | - Mustafa Alhaji Isa
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Lab, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Nigeria
| | - Perumal Rajakumar
- Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Madras, Chennai, India
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46
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Aminpour M, Montemagno C, Tuszynski JA. An Overview of Molecular Modeling for Drug Discovery with Specific Illustrative Examples of Applications. Molecules 2019; 24:E1693. [PMID: 31052253 PMCID: PMC6539951 DOI: 10.3390/molecules24091693] [Citation(s) in RCA: 55] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2019] [Revised: 04/17/2019] [Accepted: 04/23/2019] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
In this paper we review the current status of high-performance computing applications in the general area of drug discovery. We provide an introduction to the methodologies applied at atomic and molecular scales, followed by three specific examples of implementation of these tools. The first example describes in silico modeling of the adsorption of small molecules to organic and inorganic surfaces, which may be applied to drug delivery issues. The second example involves DNA translocation through nanopores with major significance to DNA sequencing efforts. The final example offers an overview of computer-aided drug design, with some illustrative examples of its usefulness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maral Aminpour
- Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada.
- Ingenuity Lab, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada.
- Department of Oncology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1Z2, Canada.
| | - Carlo Montemagno
- Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada.
- Ingenuity Lab, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada.
- Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.
| | - Jack A Tuszynski
- Department of Oncology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1Z2, Canada.
- Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E1, Canada.
- Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy.
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47
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Llinas Del Torrent C, Pérez-Benito L, Tresadern G. Computational Drug Design Applied to the Study of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors. Molecules 2019; 24:molecules24061098. [PMID: 30897742 PMCID: PMC6470756 DOI: 10.3390/molecules24061098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2019] [Revised: 03/15/2019] [Accepted: 03/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors are a family of eight GPCRs that are attractive drug discovery targets to modulate glutamate action and response. Here we review the application of computational methods to the study of this family of receptors. X-ray structures of the extracellular and 7-transmembrane domains have played an important role to enable structure-based modeling approaches, whilst we also discuss the successful application of ligand-based methods. We summarize the literature and highlight the areas where modeling and experiment have delivered important understanding for mGlu receptor drug discovery. Finally, we offer suggestions of future areas of opportunity for computational work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Llinas Del Torrent
- Laboratori de Medicina Computacional Unitat de Bioestadistica, Facultat de Medicina, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
| | - Laura Pérez-Benito
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium.
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, B-2340 Beerse, Belgium.
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48
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Granadino-Roldán JM, Mey ASJS, Pérez González JJ, Bosisio S, Rubio-Martinez J, Michel J. Effect of set up protocols on the accuracy of alchemical free energy calculation over a set of ACK1 inhibitors. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0213217. [PMID: 30861030 PMCID: PMC6413950 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2018] [Accepted: 02/15/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Hit-to-lead virtual screening frequently relies on a cascade of computational methods that starts with rapid calculations applied to a large number of compounds and ends with more expensive computations restricted to a subset of compounds that passed initial filters. This work focuses on set up protocols for alchemical free energy (AFE) scoring in the context of a Docking–MM/PBSA–AFE cascade. A dataset of 15 congeneric inhibitors of the ACK1 protein was used to evaluate the performance of AFE set up protocols that varied in the steps taken to prepare input files (using previously docked and best scored poses, manual selection of poses, manual placement of binding site water molecules). The main finding is that use of knowledge derived from X-ray structures to model binding modes, together with the manual placement of a bridging water molecule, improves the R2 from 0.45 ± 0.06 to 0.76 ± 0.02 and decreases the mean unsigned error from 2.11 ± 0.08 to 1.24 ± 0.04 kcal mol-1. By contrast a brute force automated protocol that increased the sampling time ten-fold lead to little improvements in accuracy. Besides, it is shown that for the present dataset hysteresis can be used to flag poses that need further attention even without prior knowledge of experimental binding affinities.
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Affiliation(s)
- José M. Granadino-Roldán
- Departamento de Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Jaén, Campus “Las Lagunillas” s/n, Jaén, Spain
- * E-mail: (JMG); (JM)
| | | | - Juan J. Pérez González
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Stefano Bosisio
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, Joseph Black Building, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Jaime Rubio-Martinez
- Departament de Química Física, Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and the Institut de Recerca en Quimica Teorica i Computacional (IQTCUB), Martí i Franqués 1, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Julien Michel
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, Joseph Black Building, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- * E-mail: (JMG); (JM)
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49
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Sarkar A, Sen S. A Comparative Analysis of the Molecular Interaction Techniques for In Silico Drug Design. Int J Pept Res Ther 2019. [DOI: 10.1007/s10989-019-09830-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
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50
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Pérez-Benito L, Casajuana-Martin N, Jiménez-Rosés M, van Vlijmen H, Tresadern G. Predicting Activity Cliffs with Free-Energy Perturbation. J Chem Theory Comput 2019; 15:1884-1895. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.8b01290] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Laura Pérez-Benito
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
| | - Nil Casajuana-Martin
- Laboratori de Medicina Computacional, Unitat de Bioestadistica, Facultat de Medicina, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra 08193, Spain
| | - Mireia Jiménez-Rosés
- Laboratori de Medicina Computacional, Unitat de Bioestadistica, Facultat de Medicina, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra 08193, Spain
| | - Herman van Vlijmen
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
| | - Gary Tresadern
- Computational Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Janssen Pharmaceutica N. V., Turnhoutseweg 30, Beerse B-2340, Belgium
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