[Folding@home] Is Structure-Based Drug Design Ready for Selectivity Optimization?

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J Chem Inf Model. 2020 Dec 28;60(12):6211-6227. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00815. Epub 2020 Oct 29. 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...

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