Cited by 234Computational Drug Discovery MethodsMicrobial Natural Products and BiosynthesisAntimicrobial Peptides and Activities

Accelerating antibiotic discovery through artificial intelligence

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Melo, Marcelo C. R., Maasch, Jacqueline R. M. A., de la Fuente-Nunez, Cesar·2021·Communications Biology

Abstract

By targeting invasive organisms, antibiotics insert themselves into the ancient struggle of the host-pathogen evolutionary arms race. As pathogens evolve tactics for evading antibiotics, therapies decline in efficacy and must be replaced, distinguishing antibiotics from most other forms of drug development. Together with a slow and expensive antibiotic development pipeline, the proliferation of drug-resistant pathogens drives urgent interest in computational methods that promise to expedite candidate discovery. Strides in artificial intelligence (AI) have encouraged its application to multiple dimensions of computer-aided drug design, with increasing application to antibiotic discovery. This review describes AI-facilitated advances in the discovery of both small molecule antibiotics and antimicrobial peptides. Beyond the essential prediction of antimicrobial activity, emphasis is also given to antimicrobial compound representation, determination of drug-likeness traits, antimicrobial resistance, and de novo molecular design. Given the urgency of the antimicrobial resistance crisis, we analyze uptake of open science best practices in AI-driven antibiotic discovery and argue for openness and reproducibility as a means of accelerating preclinical research. Finally, trends in the literature and areas for future inquiry are discussed, as artificially intelligent enhancements to drug discovery at large offer many opportunities for future applications in antibiotic development.

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  1. [102]Goodfellow, I. et al. Generative adversarial nets. In Proc. 2014 Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2672–2680 (2014).

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Authors
Melo, M. C. R., Maasch, J. R. M. A., & de la Fuente-Nunez, C.
Affiliations
University of Pennsylvania (US)
Venue
Communications Biology
Published
2021-09-09
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
1050-1050
ISSN
2399-3642 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3197063311
Cited by
234
References
208
Citations by year
2026: 44 · 2025: 60 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 2
FWCI
2.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Communications Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Defense Threat Reduction Agency (HDTRA11810041, HDTRA12110014, R35GM138201, HDTRA1)
  • Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (HDTRA11810041, HDTRA1-21-1-0014, R35GM138201)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Microbiology › Antimicrobial Peptides and Activities
Keywords
antibiotic discovery, artificial intelligence, antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial peptides, small-molecule antibiotics, computer-aided drug design, antimicrobial activity prediction, drug-likeness, de novo molecular design, open science, reproducibility, host-pathogen arms race
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, Antimicrobial Peptides, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Artificial Intelligence, Drug Design, Reproducibility of Results, Drug Discovery

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