Combined Physics- and Machine-Learning-Based Method to Identify Druggable Binding Sites Using SILCS-Hotspots
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Abstract
Identifying druggable binding sites on proteins is an important and challenging problem, particularly for cryptic, allosteric binding sites that may not be obvious from X-ray, cryo-EM, or predicted structures. The Site-Identification by Ligand Competitive Saturation (SILCS) method accounts for the flexibility of the target protein using all-atom molecular simulations that include various small molecule solutes in aqueous solution. During the simulations, the combination of protein flexibility and comprehensive sampling of the water and solute spatial distributions can identify buried binding pockets absent in experimentally determined structures. Previously, we reported a method for leveraging the information in the SILCS sampling to identify binding sites (termed Hotspots) of small mono- or bicyclic compounds, a subset of which coincide with known binding sites of drug-like molecules. Here, we build on that physics-based approach and present a ML model for ranking the Hotspots according to the likelihood they can accommodate drug-like molecules (e.g., molecular weight >200 Da). In the independent validation set, which includes various enzymes and receptors, our model recalls 67% and 89% of experimentally validated ligand binding sites in the top 10 and 20 ranked Hotspots, respectively. Furthermore, we show that the model's output Decision Function is a useful metric to predict binding sites and their potential druggability in new targets. Given the utility the SILCS method for ligand discovery and optimization, the tools presented represent an important advancement in the identification of orthosteric and allosteric binding sites and the discovery of drug-like molecules targeting those sites.
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Discovery of a Novel Family of CDK Inhibitors with the Program LIDAEUS
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Lakkaraju, S. K., Raman, E. P., Yu, W., & MacKerell, A. D. (2014) · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · doi:10.1021/ct500201y · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Self-citationJohnson, D. K., & Karanicolas, J. (2013) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002951 · Cited by 92 · see citing works
BioGPS: Navigating biological space to predict polypharmacology, off-targeting, and selectivity
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Structural basis for GPR40 allosteric agonism and incretin stimulation
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Ustach, V. D., Lakkaraju, S. K., Jo, S., Yu, W., Jiang, W., & MacKerell, A. D. (2019) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.9b00210 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Self-citationTan, Y. S., Sledz, P., Lang, S., Stubbs, C. J., Spring, D. R., Abell, C., & Best, R. B. (2012) · Angewandte Chemie International Edition · doi:10.1002/anie.201205676 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
GOLDSTEIN, D. M., Soth, M., Gabriel, T., Dewdney, N. J., Kuglstatter, A., Arzeno, H. B., Chen, J., BINGENHEIMER, W., Dalrymple, S. A., Dunn, J., et al. (2011) · Journal of Medicinal Chemistry · doi:10.1021/jm101423y · Cited by 77 · see citing works
Identification of Cryptic Binding Sites Using MixMD with Standard and Accelerated Molecular Dynamics
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Exploring Cryptic Pockets Formation in Targets of Pharmaceutical Interest with SWISH
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Self-citationMachine Learning for Sequence and Structure-Based Protein–Ligand Interaction Prediction
Zhang, Y., Li, S., Meng, K., & Sun, S. (2024) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01841 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Residues Distant from the Active Site Influence Protein-tyrosine Phosphatase 1B Inhibitor Binding
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Goel, H., Hazel, A. J., Ustach, V. D., Jo, S., Yu, W., & MacKerell, A. D. (2021) · Chemical Science · doi:10.1039/d1sc01781k · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Self-citationMixMD Probeview: Robust Binding Site Prediction from Cosolvent Simulations
Graham, S. E., Leja, N., & Carlson, H. A. (2018) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.8b00265 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Structural Basis for Activation of the Heterodimeric GABAB Receptor
Kim, Y., Jeong, E.-Y., Jeong, J., Kim, Y., & Cho, Y. (2020) · Journal of Molecular Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2020.09.023 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
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Form follows function: Shape analysis of protein cavities for receptor‐based drug design
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Probing acid replacements of thiophene PTP1B inhibitors
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Glatz, G., Gógl, G., Alexa, A., & Reményi, A. (2013) · Journal of Biological Chemistry · doi:10.1074/jbc.m113.452235 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Zariquiey, F. S., de Souza, J. V. B., & Bronowska, A. K. (2019) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-019-55394-2 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Danzhi Huang, A., & Caflisch, A. (2011) · ChemMedChem · doi:10.1002/cmdc.201100237 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
pMD-Membrane: A Method for Ligand Binding Site Identification in Membrane-Bound Proteins
Prakash, P., Sayyed–Ahmad, A., & Gorfe, A. A. (2015) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004469 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Computational Analysis of Protein Hotspots
Yang, C., & Wang, S. (2010) · ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters · doi:10.1021/ml100026a · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Sayyed–Ahmad, A., & Gorfe, A. A. (2017) · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · doi:10.1021/acs.jctc.7b00130 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
SILCS-RNA: Toward a Structure-Based Drug Design Approach for Targeting RNAs with Small Molecules
Kognole, A. A., Hazel, A. J., & MacKerell, A. D. (2022) · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · doi:10.1021/acs.jctc.2c00381 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Self-citationBorsatto, A., Gianquinto, E., Rizzi, V., & Gervasio, F. L. (2024) · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · doi:10.1021/acs.jctc.3c01318 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
An Integrated Machine Learning Model To Spot Peptide Binding Pockets in 3D Protein Screening
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Exploring the Application of SiteMap and Site Finder for Focused Cryptic Pocket Identification
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Accessible Color Sequences for Data VisualizationPreprint
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SiteFerret: Beyond Simple Pocket Identification in Proteins
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Identification of small-molecule protein–protein interaction inhibitors for NKG2D
Thompson, A. A., Harbut, M. B., Kung, P., Karpowich, N. K., Branson, J. D., Grant, J. C., Hagan, D. L., Pascual, H. A., Bai, G., Zavareh, R. B., et al. (2023) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2216342120 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
GPU‐specific algorithms for improved solute sampling in grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations
Zhao, M., Kognole, A. A., Jo, S., Tao, A., Hazel, A. J., & MacKerell, A. D. (2023) · Journal of Computational Chemistry · doi:10.1002/jcc.27121 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citationTibaut, T., Borišek, J., Novič, M., & Türk, V. (2016) · SAR and QSAR in environmental research · doi:10.1080/1062936x.2016.1217271 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Zhao, M., Yu, W., & MacKerell, A. D. (2024) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry B · doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.4c03045 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Self-citationAndreev, G., Kovalenko, M. A., Bozdaganyan, M. E., & Orekhov, P. S. (2024) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry B · doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07853 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Drug Design Data Resource Grand Challenge 2 Dataset: FXR - Farnesoid X receptor
(D3R), D. D. D. R. (2017) · UC San Diego · doi:10.15782/d6rp4p · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
2 of the 140 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Koseki, J., Motono, C., Yanagisawa, K., Kudo, G., Yoshino, R., Hirokawa, T., & Imai, K. (2025) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.4c02111 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
İnan, T., Yuce, M., MacKerell, A. D., & Kürkçüoğlu, Ö. (2024) · ACS Omega · doi:10.1021/acsomega.4c06172 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Self-citationMotono, C., Yanagisawa, K., Koseki, J., & Imai, K. (2025) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences · doi:10.3390/ijms26104710 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Computational Modeling of PROTAC Ternary Complexes as Ensembles Using SILCS-xTAC
Nordquist, E. B., Zhao, M., Yu, W., & MacKerell, A. D. (2025) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.5c02045 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citationChan, A. M., Lowe, B. D., Cottingham, A. L., Eker, D. V., Aytenfisu, A. H., Jones, J. W., MacKerell, A. D., Pearson, R. M., & Fletcher, S. (2025) · ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters · doi:10.1021/acsmedchemlett.5c00500 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationComparative study of innovative computational methods for identifying cryptic pockets
Li, Y., Song, L., Dong, Y., & Hao, G. (2025) · Drug Discovery Today · doi:10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104430 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Mapping the distribution and affinities of ligand interaction sites on human serum albumin
Orr, A. A., Uwakweh, A.-O., Li, X., Karanji, A., Hoag, S. W., Deredge, D. J., & MacKerell, A. D. (2025) · Biophysical Journal · doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2025.03.016 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Self-citationSolvation Energetic Costs of Cognate Binding Site Formation
Ji, Y., Molino, V., Ramsey, S., & Kurtzman, T. (2025) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.5c01432 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
How and Why Does Knowledge‐Based Biased Docking Improve Molecular Docking Performance?
Prieto, J. M., Lannot, J. O., Clemente, C. M., Modenutti, C. P., Turjanski, A. G., & Marti, M. A. (2026) · ChemMedChem · doi:10.1002/cmdc.202501058 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Michel, H., Brown, A. M., MacKerell, A. D., & Lemkul, J. A. (2026) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkag871 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Self-citationToward understanding the drivers of antibody-antigen binding
Khan, O., Kankkunen, M., Shaker, M., Chow, H., Moustakas, N., Allegra-Berger, S., Lazou, M., Vajda, S., & Joseph‐McCarthy, D. (2026) · Biophysical Journal · doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2026.02.008
Best Practices in Mixed-Solvent Molecular Dynamics and Solvent-Site-Biased Docking
Prieto, J. M., Estrada, J. A. D. C., Clemente, C. M., & Marti, M. A. (2026) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.6c00082
Mukhopadhyay, S., & Chakrabarty, S. (2026) · Chemical Communications · doi:10.1039/d5cc06159h
Automated pharmacophore hypothesis generator for SILCS-Pharm: ph4gen
Nordquist, E. B., & MacKerell, A. D. (2026) · Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design · doi:10.1007/s10822-026-00957-5
Self-citation
- Authors
- Nordquist, E. B., Zhao, M., Kumar, A., & MacKerell, A. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, Baltimore (US)
- Corresponding author
- MacKerell, Alexander D.
- Venue
- Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2024-09-16
- Volume
- 64
- Issue
- 19
- Pages
- 7743-7757
- ISSN
- 1549-9596 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-960X
- PMC
- PMC11473228
- OpenAlex
- W4402580877
- Cited by
- 15
- References
- 140
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 2
- FWCI
- 3.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling (publishedVersion)
- ChemRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35 GM131710)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Structure and Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches
- Keywords
- allosteric site, orthosteric binding site, SILCS, hot spots, binding site prediction, protein flexibility, ligand binding, decision function, drug-like molecules, ligand discovery, ligand optimization
- MeSH terms
- Machine Learning, Binding Sites, Ligands, Protein Binding, Protein Conformation, Proteins, Drug Discovery, Molecular Dynamics Simulation
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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