Compound properties permeability screens

The genesis of in silico oral bioavailability predictions can be traced back to Lip-inski s Rule of Five and others qualitative attempts to describe drug-like molecules [13-15]. These processes are useful primarily as a qualitative tool in the early stage library design and in the candidate selection. Despite its large number of falsepositive results, Lipinski s Rule of Five has come into wide use as a qualitative tool to help the chemist design bioavailable compounds. It was concluded that compounds are most likely to have poor absorption when the molecular weight is >500, the calculated octan-l-ol/water partition coefficient (c log P) is >5, the number of H-bond donors is >5, and the number of H-bond acceptors is >10. Computation of these properties is now available as an ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion) screen in commercial software such as Tsar (from Accelrys). The rule-of-5 should be seen as a qualitative, rather than quantitative, predictor of absorption and permeability [16, 17]. 

The rather time- and cost-expensive preparation of primary brain microvessel endothelial cells, as well as the limited number of experiments which can be performed with intact brain capillaries, has led to an attempt to predict the blood-brain barrier permeability of new chemical entities in silico. Artificial neural networks have been developed to predict the ratios of the steady-state concentrations of drugs in the brain to those of the blood from their structural parameters [117, 118]. A summary of the current efforts is given in Chap. 25. Quantitative structure-property relationship models based on in vivo blood-brain permeation data and systematic variable selection methods led to success rates of prediction of over 80% for barrier permeant and nonper-meant compounds, thus offering a tool for virtual screening of substances of interest [119]. 

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