Ligand- and Structure-Based Analysis of Deep Learning-Generated Potential α2a Adrenoceptor Agonists

Abstract

The α2a adrenoceptor is a particularly medically relevant subtype of the G protein-couple receptor family. Unfortunately, high-throughput techniques aimed at producing novel drug leads targeted to this receptor have been largely unsuccessful due to the complex pharmacology of adrenergic receptors. As such, cutting-edge in silico ligand- and structure-based assessment and de novo deep learning methods are well-positioned to provide new insights into protein-ligand interactions and potential active compounds. In this work, we (i) collect a dataset of α2a adrenoceptor agonists and provide it as a resource for the drug design community; (ii) use the dataset as a basis to generate candidate active structures via deep learning; and (iii) apply computational ligand- and structure-based analysis techniques to gain new insight into α2a adrenoceptor agonists and assess the quality of the computer-generated compounds. Additionally, we further describe how such assessment techniques can be applied to putative chemical probes with a case study involved proposed medetomidine-based probes.