Efficient molecular encoders for virtual screening.

Journal: Drug discovery today. Technologies
Published Date:

Abstract

Molecular representations encoding molecular structure information play critical roles in molecular virtual screening (VS). In order to improve VS performance, an abundance of molecular encoders have been developed and tested by various VS challenges. Combinational strategies were also used to improve the performance. Deep learning (DL)-based molecular encoders have attracted much attention for their automatic information extraction ability. In this review, we present an overview of two-dimensional-, three-dimensional-, and DL-based molecular encoders, summarize recent progress of VS using DL technologies, and propose a general framework of DL molecular encoder-based VS. Perspectives on the future directions of molecular representations and applications in the prediction of active compounds are also provided.

Authors

  • Youjun Xu
    Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, ‡Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, and ¶Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University , Beijing 100871, China.
  • Chenjing Cai
    Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, PR China.
  • Shiwei Wang
    PTN Graduate Program, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, PR China.
  • Luhua Lai
    Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  • Jianfeng Pei
    Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.