Rescoring Virtual Screening Results with the MM-PBSA Methods: Beware of Internal Dielectric Constants

J Chem Inf Model. 2019 Jun 24;59(6):2714-2728. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.9b00095. Epub 2019 May 15.

Abstract

With the potential of improving virtual screening outcome, MM-PB/GBSA has become a disputed method that requires extensive testing and tuning to provide the optimal results. One of the tuning factors is the internal or solute dielectric constant. We have applied three test sets with receptors of different categories and libraries from different sources to investigate the underlying issue related to this constant. We discovered that increasing internal dielectric value does not improve the virtual screening enrichment qualitatively. More interestingly, nonpolar and polar calculated energies act differently in libraries with different molecular weight distributions. From this work, the performance of MM-PBSA rescoring in virtual screening is more library- than receptor-dependent.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cheminformatics / methods
  • Drug Design
  • Drug Discovery / methods*
  • Electric Conductivity
  • Humans
  • Protein Binding
  • Proteins / metabolism
  • Small Molecule Libraries / chemistry*
  • Small Molecule Libraries / pharmacology
  • Thermodynamics

Substances

  • Proteins
  • Small Molecule Libraries