A desirability-based multi objective approach for the virtual screening discovery of broad-spectrum anti-gastric cancer agents

PLoS One. 2018 Feb 8;13(2):e0192176. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192176. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Gastric cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide and despite advances in prevention, diagnosis and therapy, it is still regarded as a global health concern. The efficacy of the therapies for gastric cancer is limited by a poor response to currently available therapeutic regimens. One of the reasons that may explain these poor clinical outcomes is the highly heterogeneous nature of this disease. In this sense, it is essential to discover new molecular agents capable of targeting various gastric cancer subtypes simultaneously. Here, we present a multi-objective approach for the ligand-based virtual screening discovery of chemical compounds simultaneously active against the gastric cancer cell lines AGS, NCI-N87 and SNU-1. The proposed approach relays in a novel methodology based on the development of ensemble models for the bioactivity prediction against each individual gastric cancer cell line. The methodology includes the aggregation of one ensemble per cell line using a desirability-based algorithm into virtual screening protocols. Our research leads to the proposal of a multi-targeted virtual screening protocol able to achieve high enrichment of known chemicals with anti-gastric cancer activity. Specifically, our results indicate that, using the proposed protocol, it is possible to retrieve almost 20 more times multi-targeted compounds in the first 1% of the ranked list than what is expected from a uniform distribution of the active ones in the virtual screening database. More importantly, the proposed protocol attains an outstanding initial enrichment of known multi-targeted anti-gastric cancer agents.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents / pharmacology
  • Antineoplastic Agents / therapeutic use*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Drug Discovery
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Stomach Neoplasms / drug therapy*

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents

Grants and funding

HP-T and HL-T-T were funded by the National Foundation for Science and Technology Development of Vietnam (NAFOSTED, grant number 108.05-2017.13). MC-M was supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and FEDER/COMPETE (grant SFRH/BPD/90673/2012). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.