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Rath M, Wellnitz J, Martin HJ, Melo-Filho C, Hochuli JE, Silva GM, Beasley JM, Travis M, Sessions ZL, Popov KI, Zakharov AV, Cherkasov A, Alves V, Muratov EN, Tropsha A. Pharmacokinetics Profiler (PhaKinPro): Model Development, Validation, and Implementation as a Web Tool for Triaging Compounds with Undesired Pharmacokinetics Profiles. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6508-6518. [PMID: 38568752 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/05/2024]
Abstract
Computational models that predict pharmacokinetic properties are critical to deprioritize drug candidates that emerge as hits in high-throughput screening campaigns. We collected, curated, and integrated a database of compounds tested in 12 major end points comprising over 10,000 unique molecules. We then employed these data to build and validate binary quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models. All trained models achieved a correct classification rate above 0.60 and a positive predictive value above 0.50. To illustrate their utility in drug discovery, we used these models to predict the pharmacokinetic properties for drugs in the NCATS Inxight Drugs database. In addition, we employed the developed models to predict the pharmacokinetic properties of all compounds in the DrugBank. All models described in this paper have been integrated and made publicly available via the PhaKinPro Web-portal that can be accessed at https://phakinpro.mml.unc.edu/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marielle Rath
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - James Wellnitz
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Holli-Joi Martin
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Cleber Melo-Filho
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Joshua E Hochuli
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Guilherme Martins Silva
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Jon-Michael Beasley
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Maxfield Travis
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Zoe L Sessions
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Konstantin I Popov
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Alexey V Zakharov
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850, United States
| | - Artem Cherkasov
- Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6H3Z6, Canada
| | - Vinicius Alves
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Eugene N Muratov
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Alexander Tropsha
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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Kirchoff KE, Wellnitz J, Hochuli JE, Maxfield T, Popov KI, Gomez S, Tropsha A. Utilizing Low-Dimensional Molecular Embeddings for Rapid Chemical Similarity Search. Adv Inf Retr 2024; 14609:34-49. [PMID: 38585224 PMCID: PMC10998712 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-56060-6_3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
Nearest neighbor-based similarity searching is a common task in chemistry, with notable use cases in drug discovery. Yet, some of the most commonly used approaches for this task still leverage a brute-force approach. In practice this can be computationally costly and overly time-consuming, due in part to the sheer size of modern chemical databases. Previous computational advancements for this task have generally relied on improvements to hardware or dataset-specific tricks that lack generalizability. Approaches that leverage lower-complexity searching algorithms remain relatively underexplored. However, many of these algorithms are approximate solutions and/or struggle with typical high-dimensional chemical embeddings. Here we evaluate whether a combination of low-dimensional chemical embeddings and a k-d tree data structure can achieve fast nearest neighbor queries while maintaining performance on standard chemical similarity search benchmarks. We examine different dimensionality reductions of standard chemical embeddings as well as a learned, structurally-aware embedding-SmallSA-for this task. With this framework, searches on over one billion chemicals execute in less than a second on a single CPU core, five orders of magnitude faster than the brute-force approach. We also demonstrate that SmallSA achieves competitive performance on chemical similarity benchmarks.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | - Shawn Gomez
- Department of Pharmacology, UNC Chapel Hill
- Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNC Chapel Hill and NCSU
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Asressu KH, Smith JL, Dickmander RJ, Moorman NJ, Wellnitz J, Popov KI, Axtman AD, Willson TM. Synthesis of 5-Benzylamino and 5-Alkylamino-Substituted Pyrimido[4,5-c]quinoline Derivatives as CSNK2A Inhibitors with Antiviral Activity. Pharmaceuticals (Basel) 2024; 17:306. [PMID: 38543092 PMCID: PMC10976173 DOI: 10.3390/ph17030306] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2024] [Revised: 02/11/2024] [Accepted: 02/23/2024] [Indexed: 04/01/2024] Open
Abstract
A series of 5-benzylamine-substituted pyrimido[4,5-c]quinoline derivatives of the CSNK2A chemical probe SGC-CK2-2 were synthesized with the goal of improving kinase inhibitor cellular potency and antiviral phenotypic activity while maintaining aqueous solubility. Among the range of analogs, those bearing electron-withdrawing (4c and 4g) or donating (4f) substituents on the benzyl ring as well as introduction of non-aromatic groups such as the cyclohexylmethyl (4t) were shown to maintain CSNK2A activity. The CSNK2A activity was also retained with N-methylation of SGC-CK2-2, but α-methyl substitution of the benzyl substituent led to a 10-fold reduction in potency. CSNK2A inhibition potency was restored with indene-based compound 4af, with activity residing in the S-enantiomer (4ag). Analogs with the highest CSNK2A potency showed good activity for inhibition of Mouse Hepatitis Virus (MHV) replication. Conformational analysis indicated that analogs with the best CSNK2A inhibition (4t, 4ac, and 4af) exhibited smaller differences between their ground state conformation and their predicted binding pose. Analogs with reduced activity (4ad, 4ae, and 4ai) required more substantial conformational changes from their ground state within the CSNK2A protein pocket.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kesatebrhan Haile Asressu
- Structural Genomics Consortium, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; (K.H.A.); (J.L.S.)
| | - Jeffery L. Smith
- Structural Genomics Consortium, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; (K.H.A.); (J.L.S.)
| | - Rebekah J. Dickmander
- Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI), Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Nathaniel J. Moorman
- Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI), Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - James Wellnitz
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Konstantin I. Popov
- Center of Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Alison D. Axtman
- Structural Genomics Consortium, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; (K.H.A.); (J.L.S.)
- Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI), Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Timothy M. Willson
- Structural Genomics Consortium, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; (K.H.A.); (J.L.S.)
- Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI), Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
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4
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Popov KI, Wellnitz J, Maxfield T, Tropsha A. HIt Discovery using docking ENriched by GEnerative Modeling (HIDDEN GEM): A novel computational workflow for accelerated virtual screening of ultra-large chemical libraries. Mol Inform 2024; 43:e202300207. [PMID: 37802967 DOI: 10.1002/minf.202300207] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2023] [Revised: 10/03/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 10/08/2023]
Abstract
Recent rapid expansion of make-on-demand, purchasable, chemical libraries comprising dozens of billions or even trillions of molecules has challenged the efficient application of traditional structure-based virtual screening methods that rely on molecular docking. We present a novel computational methodology termed HIDDEN GEM (HIt Discovery using Docking ENriched by GEnerative Modeling) that greatly accelerates virtual screening. This workflow uniquely integrates machine learning, generative chemistry, massive chemical similarity searching and molecular docking of small, selected libraries in the beginning and the end of the workflow. For each target, HIDDEN GEM nominates a small number of top-scoring virtual hits prioritized from ultra-large chemical libraries. We have benchmarked HIDDEN GEM by conducting virtual screening campaigns for 16 diverse protein targets using Enamine REAL Space library comprising 37 billion molecules. We show that HIDDEN GEM yields the highest enrichment factors as compared to state of the art accelerated virtual screening methods, while requiring the least computational resources. HIDDEN GEM can be executed with any docking software and employed by users with limited computational resources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Konstantin I Popov
- UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - James Wellnitz
- UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Travis Maxfield
- UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Alexander Tropsha
- UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
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5
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Alves VM, Yasgar A, Wellnitz J, Rai G, Rath M, Braga RC, Capuzzi SJ, Simeonov A, Muratov EN, Zakharov AV, Tropsha A. Lies and Liabilities: Computational Assessment of High-Throughput Screening Hits to Identify Artifact Compounds. J Med Chem 2023; 66:12828-12839. [PMID: 37677128 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c00482] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/09/2023]
Abstract
Hits from high-throughput screening (HTS) of chemical libraries are often false positives due to their interference with assay detection technology. In response, we generated the largest publicly available library of chemical liabilities and developed "Liability Predictor," a free web tool to predict HTS artifacts. More specifically, we generated, curated, and integrated HTS data sets for thiol reactivity, redox activity, and luciferase (firefly and nano) activity and developed and validated quantitative structure-interference relationship (QSIR) models to predict these nuisance behaviors. The resulting models showed 58-78% external balanced accuracy for 256 external compounds per assay. QSIR models developed and validated herein identify nuisance compounds among experimental hits more reliably than do popular PAINS filters. Both the models and the curated data sets were implemented in "Liability Predictor," publicly available at https://liability.mml.unc.edu/. "Liability Predictor" may be used as part of chemical library design or for triaging HTS hits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vinicius M Alves
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Adam Yasgar
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850, United States
| | - James Wellnitz
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Ganesha Rai
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850, United States
| | - Marielle Rath
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | | | - Stephen J Capuzzi
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Anton Simeonov
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850, United States
| | - Eugene N Muratov
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Federal University of Paraiba, Joao Pessoa, PB 58059, Brazil
| | - Alexey V Zakharov
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850, United States
| | - Alexander Tropsha
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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6
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Lundquist K, Billings E, Bi M, Wellnitz J, Noinaj N. The assembly of β-barrel membrane proteins by BAM and SAM. Mol Microbiol 2020; 115:425-435. [PMID: 33314350 DOI: 10.1111/mmi.14666] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2020] [Revised: 12/11/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Gram-negative bacteria, mitochondria, and chloroplasts all possess an outer membrane populated with a host of β-barrel outer-membrane proteins (βOMPs). These βOMPs play crucial roles in maintaining viability of their hosts, and therefore, it is essential to understand the biogenesis of this class of membrane proteins. In recent years, significant structural and functional advancements have been made toward elucidating this process, which is mediated by the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) in Gram-negative bacteria, and by the sorting and assembly machinery (SAM) in mitochondria. Structures of both BAM and SAM have now been reported, allowing a comparison and dissection of the two machineries, with other studies reporting on functional aspects of each. Together, these new insights provide compelling support for the proposed budding mechanism, where each nascent βOMP forms a hybrid-barrel intermediate with BAM/SAM in route to its biogenesis into the membrane. Here, we will review these recent studies and highlight their contributions toward understanding βOMP biogenesis in Gram-negative bacteria and in mitochondria. We will also weigh the evidence supporting each of the two leading mechanistic models for how BAM/SAM function, and offer an outlook on future studies within the field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karl Lundquist
- Department of Biological Sciences, Markey Center for Structural Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
| | - Evan Billings
- Department of Biological Sciences, Markey Center for Structural Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
| | - Maxine Bi
- Department of Biological Sciences, Markey Center for Structural Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
| | - James Wellnitz
- Department of Biological Sciences, Markey Center for Structural Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
| | - Nicholas Noinaj
- Department of Biological Sciences, Markey Center for Structural Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.,Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
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Hagen T, Schweigerer-Schröter G, Wellnitz J, Würstle T. [Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance tomography in diagnosis of encephalitis disseminata]. Radiologe 2000; 40:1057-63. [PMID: 11147321 DOI: 10.1007/s001170050878] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is one of the best methods in diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, particularly in disclosure of active demyelinating lesions. Aim of this study was to compare diffusion weighted imaging and contrast enhancement in the detection of active lesions. A MR study with a contrast enhanced T1-weighted pulse sequence with magnetization transfer presaturation and a diffusion weighted echoplanar pulse sequence (b = 1000 s/mm2) was performed in 17 patients (11 women, 6 men) with multiple sclerosis. 29 of 239 lesions showed an increased signal intensity in diffusion weighted imaging, 24 lesions a contrast enhancement, but only 16 lesions were visible in both pulse sequences. In patients with short clinical symptomatology significant more lesions could be detected with diffusion-weighted pulse sequence in comparison to patients with long standing symptomatology showing more lesions with contrast enhancement. Hence it is likely, that both pulse sequences detect different histopathologic changes. The early detection of demyelinating lesions in diffusion weighted imaging is attributed to the extracellular edema, however the contrast enhancement is caused by a blood brain barrier abnormality. It can be expected that diffusion weighted imaging will have a high impact on imaging of multiple sclerosis not only in therapeutic trials, but also in clinical routine.
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Affiliation(s)
- T Hagen
- Radiologengemeinschaft Augsburg, Ulmer Strasse 160 A, 86156 Augsburg.
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