Introducing the Automated Ligand Searcher
Luise Jacobsen, Jonathan Hungerland, Vladimir Bačić, Luca Gerhards, Fabian Schuhmann, Ilia A. Solov'yov
Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling
63
7518-7528
2023
abstract
The Automated Ligand Searcher (ALISE) is designed as anautomated computational drug discovery tool. To approximate the binding free energy of ligands to a receptor, ALISE includes a three-stage workflow with each stage involving an increasingly sophisticated computational method: molecular docking, molecular dynamics, and free energy perturbation, respectively. To narrow the number of potential ligands, poorly performing ligands are gradually segregated out. The performance and usability of ALISE are benchmarked for a case study containing known active ligands and decoys for the HIV protease. The example illustrates that ALISE filters the decoys successfully and demonstrates that the automation, comprehensiveness, and user-friendliness of the software make it a valuable tool for improved and faster drug development workflows.