Spherical harmonics coeffcients for ligand-based virtual screening of cyclooxygenase inhibitors

  • Background: Molecular descriptors are essential for many applications in computational chemistry, such as ligand-based similarity searching. Spherical harmonics have previously been suggested as comprehensive descriptors of molecular structure and properties. We investigate a spherical harmonics descriptor for shape-based virtual screening. Methodology/Principal Findings: We introduce and validate a partially rotation-invariant three-dimensional molecular shape descriptor based on the norm of spherical harmonics expansion coefficients. Using this molecular representation, we parameterize molecular surfaces, i.e., isosurfaces of spatial molecular property distributions. We validate the shape descriptor in a comprehensive retrospective virtual screening experiment. In a prospective study, we virtually screen a large compound library for cyclooxygenase inhibitors, using a self-organizing map as a pre-filter and the shape descriptor for candidate prioritization. Conclusions/Significance: 12 compounds were tested in vitro for direct enzyme inhibition and in a whole blood assay. Active compounds containing a triazole scaffold were identified as direct cyclooxygenase-1 inhibitors. This outcome corroborates the usefulness of spherical harmonics for representation of molecular shape in virtual screening of large compound collections. The combination of pharmacophore and shape-based filtering of screening candidates proved to be a straightforward approach to finding novel bioactive chemotypes with minimal experimental effort.

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Metadaten
Author:Quan Wang, Kerstin Birod, Carlo Federico AngioniORCiD, Sabine GröschORCiDGND, Tim Geppert, Petra Schneider, Matthias Rupp, Gisbert SchneiderORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-114720
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021554
ISSN:1932-6203
Parent Title (English):PLoS One
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2011/07/27
Date of first Publication:2011/07/27
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2011/09/07
Volume:6
Issue:(7): e21554
Note:
Copyright: © 2011 Wang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Source:PLoS ONE 6(7): e21554. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021554
HeBIS-PPN:276255771
Institutes:Biochemie, Chemie und Pharmazie / Pharmazie
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS)
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Sammlung Biologie / Sondersammelgebiets-Volltexte
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0