Assessing the Geometric Diversity of Cytochrome P450 Ligand Conformers by Hierarchical Clustering with a Stop Criterion

An algorithm is presented, which exhibits a computed number of rigid conformers of an input small molecule, covering the geometric diversity in the conformational space, with minimal structural redundancy. The algorithm calls a conformer generator, then performs an agglomerative hierarchical clustering with the modified clustering gain as the stop criterion. The number of classes is computed without an arbitrary parameter. A representative conformer is selected in each class, and nonrepresentative conformers are discarded. For illustration, the algorithm has been applied on a database containing 70 ligands of the cytochrome CYP 3A4, showing that the structural flexibility of each ligand is indeed handled via a small number of its representative conformers. The method is valid for all small molecules.