Biological promiscuity

Key Words Prioritization compound quality structural diversity consensus scoring regularization molecular complexity structural alerts biological promiscuity. 

Q-score Compound quality score based on molecular weight, biological promiscuity, and other data commonly accepted to measure lead-like properties of a compound. 

Much has been written in the literature regarding the desirable levels of many of these features (3-12). Owing to space and other limitations, we will briefly describe three of these features. These are biological promiscuity, molecular complexity, and estimated solubility. 

Fig. 3. Biological Promiscuity Index (BPI) versus the observed number of active assay reports.

Figures 12-14 indicate that the distributions of average molecular weight, average rule-of-five score, and average biological promiscuity have trends consistent with the goal of the priority lists.

Fig. 14. Distribution of average biological promiscuity index grouped by priority list.

As it is the case in polypeptide folding, nonspecific or promiscuous RNA-binding proteins can prevent RNA mis-folding and resolve mis-foldedRNAs, thereby ensuring that RNA is accessible for its biological function [ 1 ]. Certain DEAD-box proteins as well as some proteins that are involved in the assembly of ribonuleoparticles were shown to act as RNA chaperones. 

Hopkins, A.L. Mason, J.S. and Overington, J.P. (2006) Can we rationally design promiscuous drugs Current Opinion in Structural Biology, 16,127—136. 

Non-selective PKB inhibitors have been extensively used as tool compounds to elucidate the role of this kinase in the biology of human cancers. Thus, PKB isoforms are potently inhibited by promiscuous kinase inhibitors like staurosporine (compound 22, Fig. 5 IC50 = 48 to 11 nM for PKBa) [131-133] and derivatives thereof (e.g., compound 23, Fig. 5) [134]. Another example of a potent and non-selective pan-PKB inhibitor is Ro-31-8220 (compound 24, Fig. 5), a PKC inhibitor (IC50 = 10 nM) [135] that also interferes with PKB kinase activity (IC50 = 240 nM for PKBa). 

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