title: Applying pattern recognition methods plus quantum and physico-chemical molecular descriptors to analyze the anabolic activity of structurally diverse steroids.
abstract: The great cost associated with the development of new anabolic-androgenic steroid (AASs) makes necessary the development of computational methods that shorten the drug discovery pipeline. Toward this end, quantum, and physicochemical molecular descriptors, plus linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used to analyze the anabolic/androgenic activity of structurally diverse steroids and to discover novel AASs, as well as also to give a structural interpretation of their anabolic-androgenic ratio (AAR). The obtained models are able to correctly classify 91.67% (86.27%) of the AASs in the training (test) sets, respectively. The results of predictions on the 10% full-out cross-validation test also evidence the robustness of the obtained model. Moreover, these classification functions are applied to an "in house" library of chemicals, to find novel AASs. Two new AASs are synthesized and tested for in vivo activity. Although both AASs are less active than some commercially AASs, this result leaves a door open to a virtual variational study of the structure of the two compounds, to improve their biological activity. The LDA-assisted QSAR models presented here, could significantly reduce the number of synthesized and tested AASs, as well as could increase the chance of finding new chemical entities with higher AAR.
authors.affiliation: Pharmaceutical Chemistry Center, 16042 La Habana, Cuba.
authors.forename: Yoanna María
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Alvarez-Ginarte
authors.forename: Yovani
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Marrero-Ponce
authors.forename: José Alberto
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ruiz-García
authors.forename: Luis Alberto
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Montero-Cabrera
authors.forename: Jose Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: García de la Vega
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Noheda Marin
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Crespo-Otero
authors.forename: Francisco Torrens
authors.initials: FT
authors.lastname: Zaragoza
authors.forename: Ramón
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: García-Domenech
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D045930:Anabolic Agents / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000494:pharmacology*; D055598:Chemical Phenomena; D002627:Chemistry, Physical; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D008024:Ligands; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D021281:Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship; D011789:Quantum Theory; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013256:Steroids / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D045930:Anabolic Agents; D008024:Ligands; D013256:Steroids