Title
Predictive classification models and targets identification for betulin derivatives as <Emphasis Type="Italic">Leishmania donovani</Emphasis> inhibitors
Abstract
Betulin derivatives have been proven effective in vitro against Leishmania donovani amastigotes, which cause visceral leishmaniasis. Identifying the molecular targets and molecular mechanisms underlying their action is a currently an unmet challenge. In the present study, we tackle this problem using computational methods to establish properties essential for activity as well as to screen betulin derivatives against potential targets. Recursive partitioning classification methods were explored to develop predictive models for 58 diverse betulin derivatives inhibitors of L. donovani amastigotes. The established models were validated on a testing set, showing excellent performance. Molecular fingerprints FCFP_6 and ALogP were extracted as the physicochemical properties most extensively involved in separating inhibitors from non-inhibitors. The potential targets of betulin derivatives inhibitors were predicted by in silico target fishing using structure-based pharmacophore searching and compound-pharmacophore-target-pathway network analysis, first on PDB and then among L. donovani homologs using a PSI-BLAST search. The essential identified proteins are all related to protein kinase family. Previous research already suggested members of the cyclin-dependent kinase family and MAP kinases as Leishmania potential drug targets. The PSI-BLAST search suggests two L. donovani proteins to be especially attractive as putative betulin target, heat shock protein 83 and membrane transporter D1.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1186/s13321-018-0291-x
Journal of Cheminformatics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Leishmania donovani inhibitors, Betulin derivatives, Predictive modeling, Classification models, Recursive partitioning, In silico target prediction, Structure-based pharmacophore, Network analysis
Pharmacophore,Leishmania donovani,Leishmania,Computer science,Amastigote,Betulin,Bioinformatics,Computational biology,Heat shock protein,Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB),In silico
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
10
1
1758-2946
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
9
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yuezhou Zhang100.68
Henri Xhaard2152.88
Leo Ghemtio342.19