An automated computer vision and roboticsbased technique for 3-D flexible biomolecular docking and matching

Bilha Sandak, Ruth Nussinov*, Haim J. Wolfson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Scopus citations

Abstract

The generation of binding modes between two molecules, also known as molecular docking, is a key problem in rational drug design and biomolecular recognition. Docking a ligand, e.g., a drug molecule or a protein molecule, to a protein receptor, involves recognition of molecular surfaces as molecules interact at their surface. Recent studies report that the activity of many molecules induces conformational transitions by 'hinge-bending', which involves movements of relatively rigid parts with respect to each other. In ligand-receptor binding, relative rotational movements of molecu-lar substructures about their common hinges have been observed. For automatically predicting flexible molecular interactions, we adapt a new technique developed in Computer Vision and Robotics for the efficient recognition of partially occluded articulated objects. These type of objects consist of rigid parts which are connected by rotary joints (hinges). Our approach is based on an extension and generalization of the Geometric Hashing and Generalized Hough Transform paradigm for rigid object recognition. Unlike other techniques which match each part individually, our approach exploits forcefully and efficiently enough the fact that the different rigid parts do belong to the same flexible molecule. We show experimental results obtained by an implementation of the algorithm for rigid and flexible docking. While the 'correct', crystal-bound complex is obtained with a small RMSD, additional, predictive 'high scoring' binding modes are generated as well. The diverse applications and implications of this general, powerful tool are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)87-99
Number of pages13
JournalBioinformatics
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1995

Funding

FundersFunder number
U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation
National Cancer Institute
Department of Health and Human Services, State Government of Victoria1-CO-74102
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation91-00219
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities83-00481
Israel Science Foundation

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