Systemic evolutionary chemical space exploration for drug discovery
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Chemical space exploration is a major task of the hit-finding process during the pursuit of novel chemical entities. Compared with other screening technologies, computational de novo design has become a popular approach to overcome the limitation of current chemical libraries. Here, we reported a de novo design platform named systemic evolutionary chemical space explorer (SECSE). The platform was conceptually inspired by fragment-based drug design, that miniaturized a “lego-building” process within the pocket of a certain target. The key to virtual hits generation was then turned into a computational search problem. To enhance search and optimization, human intelligence and deep learning were integrated. Application of SECSE against phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH), proved its potential in finding novel and diverse small molecules that are attractive starting points for further validation. This platform is open-sourced and the code is available at http://github.com/KeenThera/SECSE.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
Jumper, J., Evans, R., Pritzel, A., Green, T., Figurnov, M., Ronneberger, O., Tunyasuvunakool, K., Bates, R., Žídek, A., Potapenko, A., et al. (2021) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 · Cited by 43,764 · see citing works
Genetic Algorithms and Machine Learning
Goldberg, D. E., & Holland, J. H. (1988) · Machine Learning · doi:10.1023/a:1022602019183 · Cited by 3,193 · see citing works
Burley, S. K., Bhikadiya, C., Bi, C., Bittrich, S., Chen, L., Crichlow, G. V., Christie, C. H., Dalenberg, K., Di Costanzo, L., Duarte, J. M., et al. (2021) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkaa1038 · Cited by 1,581 · see citing works
A practical guide to large-scale docking
Bender, B. J., Gahbauer, S., Luttens, A., Lyu, J., Webb, C. M., Stein, R. M., Fink, E. A., Balius, T. E., Carlsson, J., Irwin, J. J., et al. (2021) · Nature Protocols · doi:10.1038/s41596-021-00597-z · Cited by 546 · see citing works
Computationally Efficient Algorithm to Identify Matched Molecular Pairs (MMPs) in Large Data Sets
Hussain, J., & Rea, C. (2010) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/ci900450m · Cited by 420 · see citing works
PHGDH defines a metabolic subtype in lung adenocarcinomas with poor prognosis
Zhang, B., Zheng, A., Hydbring, P., Ambroise, G., Ouchida, A. T., Goiny, M., Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg, H., & Norberg, E. (2017) · Cell Reports · doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2017.05.067 · Cited by 178 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The impact of AI on modern oncology from early detection to personalized cancer treatment
Li, J., Zhang, L., Yu, Z., Bao, Z., Li, D., & Wang, L. (2026) · npj Precision Oncology · doi:10.1038/s41698-026-01276-6 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lu, C., Liu, S., Shi, W., Yu, J., Zhou, Z., Zhang, X., Lu, X., Cai, F., Xia, N., & Wang, Y.
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Yikai
- Venue
- Journal of Cheminformatics
- Published
- 2022-04-01
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 19-19
- ISSN
- 1758-2946 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8973791
- OpenAlex
- W4225835448
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 5
- FWCI
- 3.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Cheminformatics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- ChemRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Chemical Synthesis and Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Organic Chemistry › Synthesis and Characterization of Heterocyclic Compounds
- Keywords
- de novo drug design, chemical space exploration, fragment-based drug discovery, PHGDH, deep learning, human-in-the-loop, open source software, hit finding
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 ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review