MMD-DTA: A Multi-Modal Deep Learning Framework for Drug-Target Binding Affinity and Binding Region Prediction.

Journal: IEEE/ACM transactions on computational biology and bioinformatics
Published Date:

Abstract

The prediction of drug-target affinity (DTA) plays a crucial role in drug development and the identification of potential drug targets. In recent years, computer-assisted DTA prediction has emerged as a significant approach in this field. In this study, we propose a multi-modal deep learning framework called MMD-DTA for predicting drug-target binding affinity and binding regions. The model can predict DTA while simultaneously learning the binding regions of drug-target interactions through unsupervised learning. To achieve this, MMD-DTA first uses graph neural networks and target structural feature extraction network to extract multi-modal information from the sequences and structures of drugs and targets. It then utilizes the feature interaction and fusion modules to generate interaction descriptors for predicting DTA and interaction strength for binding region prediction. Our experimental results demonstrate that MMD-DTA outperforms existing models based on key evaluation metrics. Furthermore, external validation results indicate that MMD-DTA enhances the generalization capability of the model by integrating sequence and structural information of drugs and targets. The model trained on the benchmark dataset can effectively generalize to independent virtual screening tasks. The visualization of drug-target binding region prediction showcases the interpretability of MMD-DTA, providing valuable insights into the functional regions of drug molecules that interact with proteins.

Authors

  • Qi Zhang
    Department of Gastroenterology, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
  • Yuxiao Wei
    College of Software, Dalian Jiaotong University, Dalian, 116028, China.
  • Bo Liao
  • Liwei Liu
    Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Ultrafast Laser Micro/Nano Manufacturing, Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education/Guangdong Province, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
  • Shengli Zhang
    Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture & National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University Beijing, China.