Contribution assessment of multiparameter optimization descriptors in CNS penetration.

Assessment of the influence of six physicochemical properties used in the multiparameter optimization (MPO) approach for chemical penetration of the blood-brain barrier was carried out by means of application of logistic regression and multiple linear regression, using a data set of 578 diverse chemicals. It was found that use of an aggregation MPO-score descriptor did not give satisfactory results with central nervous system (CNS)/non-CNS classification. Thus an application of the MPO approach for CNS penetration is ambiguous. An alternative to the MPO approach in this work contains detailed (quantitative) structure-activity relationship analysis using a number of methods (linear discriminant analysis, random forest, support vector machine, Gaussian process). Three properties (molecular weight, number of H-bond donors and octanol-water partition coefficient) yielded optimal categorical models with modest statistical parameters (accuracy 0.730-0.765 for CNS/non-CNS classification). The poor statistics of regression models for the common data set suggested the presence of subsets with different mechanisms of penetrations. Based on graphic comparison of experimental and calculated Cu,b values, subset clusters have satisfactory statistics. The regression models obtained allowed the estimation of descriptor contributions in log Cu,b. This means that medicinal chemists now have a simple additive scheme for at least preliminary quantitative assessment of this important pharmacokinetic parameter.

Six global and local QSPR models of aqueous solubility at pH = 7.4 based on structural similarity and physicochemical descriptors.

Aqueous solubility at pH = 7.4 is a very important property for medicinal chemists because this is the pH value of physiological media. The present work describes the application of three different methods (support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF) and multiple linear regression (MLR)) and three local quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) models (regression corrected by nearest neighbours (RCNN), arithmetic mean property (AMP) and local regression property (LoReP)) to construct stable QSPRs with clear mechanistic interpretation. Our data set contained experimental values of aqueous solubility at pH = 7.4 of 387 chemicals (349 in the training set and 38 in the test set including 16 own measurements). The initial descriptor pool contained 210 physicochemical descriptors, calculated from the HYBOT, DRAGON, SYBYL and VolSurf+ programs. Six QSPRs with good statistics based on fundamentals of aqueous solubility and optimization of descriptor space were obtained. Those models have an RMSE close to experimental error (0.70), and are amenable to physical interpretation. The QSPR models developed in this study may be useful for medicinal chemists. Global MLR, RF and SVM models may be valuable for consideration of common factors that influence solubility. The RCNN, AMP and LoReP local models may be helpful for the optimization of aqueous solubility in small sets of related chemicals.

Assessment of the classification abilities of the CNS multi-parametric optimization approach by the method of logistic regression.

Assessment of "CNS drugs/CNS candidates" classification abilities of the multi-parametric optimization (CNS MPO) approach was performed by logistic regression. It was found that the five out of the six separately used physical-chemical properties (topological polar surface area, number of hydrogen-bonded donor atoms, basicity, lipophilicity of compound in neutral form and at pH = 7.4) provided accuracy of recognition below 60%. Only the descriptor of molecular weight (MW) could correctly classify two-thirds of the studied compounds. Aggregation of all six properties in the MPOscore did not improve the classification, which was worse than the classification using only MW. The results of our study demonstrate the imperfection of the CNS MPO approach; in its current form it is not very useful for computer design of new, effective CNS drugs.

[Classification models of structure - P-glycoprotein activity of drugs].

Thirty three classification models of substrate specificity of 177 drugs to P-glycoprotein have been created using of the linear discriminant analysis, random forest and support vector machine methods. QSAR modeling was carried out using 2 strategies. The first strategy consisted in search of all possible combinations from 1÷5 descriptors on the basis of 7 most significant molecular descriptors with clear physico-chemical interpretation. In the second case forward selection procedure up to 5 descriptors, starting from the best single descriptor was used. This strategy was applied to a set of 387 DRAGON descriptors. It was found that only one of 33 models has necessary statistical parameters. This model was designed by means of the linear discriminant analysis on the basis of a single descriptor of H-bond (ΣC(ad)). The model has good statistical characteristics as evidenced by results to both internal cross-validation, and external validation with application of 44 new chemicals. This confirms an important role of hydrogen bond in the processes connected with penetration of chemical compounds through a blood-brain barrier.