Scaffold Hopping and Bioisosteric Replacements Based on Binding Site Alignments

Bioisosteric replacements and scaffold hopping play an important role in modern drug discovery and design, as they enable the change of either a core scaffold or substitutes in a drug structure, thereby facilitating optimization of pharmacokinetic properties and patenting, while the drug retains its activity. A new knowledge-based method was developed to obtain bioisosteric or scaffold replacements based on the extensive data existing in the Protein Data Bank. The method uses all-against-all ProBiS-based protein superimposition to identify ligand fragments that overlap in similar binding sites and could therefore be considered as bioisosteric replacements. The method was demonstrated on a specific example of drug candidate – a nanomolar butyrylcholinesterase inhibitor, on which bioisosteric replacements of the three ring fragments were performed. The new molecule containing bioisosteric replacements was evaluated virtually using AutoDock Vina; a similar score for the original and the compound with replacements was obtained, suggesting that the newly designed bioisostere compound might retain the potency of the original inhibitor.