title: Three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity and structure-selectivity relationships of dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors.
abstract: Three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) modelling using comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) was applied to a series of 406 structurally diverse dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibitors from Pneumocystis carinii (pc) and rat liver (rl). X-ray crystal structures of three inhibitors bound to pcDHFR were used for defining the alignment rule. For pcDHFR, a QSAR model containing 6 components was selected using leave-10%-out cross-validation (n= 240, q2 = 0.65), while a 4-component model was selected for rlDHFR (n= 237, q2 = 0.63); both include steric, electrostatic and hydrophobic contributions. The models were validated using a large test set, designed to maximise its diversity and to verify the predictive accuracy of models for extrapolation. The pcDHFR model has r2 = 0.60 and mean absolute error (MAE) = 0.57 for the test set after removing 4 outliers, and the rlDHFR model has r2 = 0.60 and MAE = 0.69 after removing 4 test set outliers. In addition, classification models predicting selectivity for pcDHFR over rlDHFR were developed using soft independent modelling by class analogy (SIMCA), with a selectivity ratio of 2 (IC50,rlDHFR/ IC50,pcDHFR) used for delimiting classes. A 5-component model including steric and electrostatic contributions has cross-validated and test set classification rates of 0.67 and 0.68 for selective inhibitors, and 0.85 and 0.72 for unselective inhibitors. The predictive accuracy of models, together with the identification of important contributions in QSAR and classification models, offer the possibility of designing potent selective inhibitors and estimating their activity prior to synthesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.
authors.forename: Jeffrey J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Sutherland
authors.forename: Donald F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Weaver
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D005493:Folic Acid Antagonists / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism; D008958:Models, Molecular; D045363:Pneumocystis carinii / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013762:Tetrahydrofolate Dehydrogenase / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D005493:Folic Acid Antagonists; D013762:Tetrahydrofolate Dehydrogenase