Small molecules conformational analysis

GAs or other methods from evolutionary computation are applied in various fields of chemistry Its tasks include the geometry optimization of conformations of small molecules, the elaboration of models for the prediction of properties or biological activities, the design of molecules de novo, the analysis of the interaction of proteins and their ligands, or the selection of descriptors [18]. The last application is explained briefly in Section 9.7.6. 

Pioneering work in the field of conformational analysis was contributed by O. Hassel (Norway) and D. R. H. Barton (Britain), for which they shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1969. Hassel s work involved the physical determination of preferred conformations of small molecules, whereas Barton was the first to show the general importance of conformation to chemical reactivity. Study of conformations and conformational equilibria has direct application to explaining the extraordinary specificity exhibited by com-... 

A molecular dynamics simulation samples the phase space of a molecule (defined by the position of the atoms and their velocities) by integrating Newton s equations of motion. Because MD accounts for thermal motion, the molecules simulated may possess enough thermal energy to overcome potential barriers, which makes the technique suitable in principle for conformational analysis of especially large molecules. In the case of small molecules, other techniques such as systematic, random. Genetic Algorithm-based, or Monte Carlo searches may be better suited for effectively sampling conformational space. 

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is, next to X-ray diffraction, the most important method to elucidate molecular structures of small molecules up to large bio macromolecules. It is used as a routine method in every chemical laboratory and it is not the aim of this article to give a comprehensive review about NMR in structural analysis. We will concentrate here on liquid-state applications with respect to drugs or drug-like molecules to emphasize techniques for conformational analysis including recent developments in the field. 

An application of the ROCS program has been reported recently (82). New scaffolds for small molecule inhibitors of the ZipA-FtsZ protein-protein interaction have been found. The shape comparisons are made relative to the bioactive conformation of a HTS hit, determined by X-ray crystallography. A followup X-ray crystallographic analysis also showed that ROCS accurately predicted the binding mode of the inhibitor. This result offers the first experimental evidence that validates the use of ROCS for scaffold hopping purposes. 

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