QSPR

When the property being described is a physical property, such as the boiling point, this is referred to as a quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR). When the property being described is a type of biological activity, such as drug activity, this is referred to as a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR). Our discussion will first address QSPR. All the points covered in the QSPR section are also applicable to QSAR, which is discussed next. 

The first step in developing a QSPR equation is to compile a list of compounds for which the experimentally determined property is known. Ideally, this list should be very large. Often, thousands of compounds are used in a QSPR study. If there are fewer compounds on the list than parameters to be fitted in the equation, then the curve fit will fail. If the same number exists for both, then an exact fit will be obtained. This exact fit is misleading because it fits the equation to all the anomalies in the data, it does not necessarily reflect all the correct trends necessary for a predictive method. In order to ensure that the method will be predictive, there should ideally be 10 times as many test compounds as fitted parameters. The choice of compounds is also important. For 

The next step is to obtain geometries for the molecules. Crystal structure geometries can be used however, it is better to use theoretically optimized geometries. By using the theoretical geometries, any systematic errors in the computation will cancel out. Furthermore, the method will predict as yet unsynthesized compounds using theoretical geometries. Some of the simpler methods require connectivity only. 

Molecular descriptors must then be computed. Any numerical value that describes the molecule could be used. Many descriptors are obtained from molecular mechanics or semiempirical calculations. Energies, population analysis, and vibrational frequency analysis with its associated thermodynamic quantities are often obtained this way. Ah initio results can be used reliably, but are often avoided due to the large amount of computation necessary. The largest percentage of descriptors are easily determined values, such as molecular weights, topological indexes, moments of inertia, and so on. Table 30.1 lists some of the descriptors that have been found to be useful in previous studies. These are discussed in more detail in the review articles listed in the bibliography. 

Once the descriptors have been computed, is necessary to decide which ones will be used. This is usually done by computing correlation coelficients. Correlation coelficients are a measure of how closely two values (descriptor and property) are related to one another by a linear relationship. If a descriptor has a correlation coefficient of 1, it describes the property exactly. A correlation coefficient of zero means the descriptor has no relevance. The descriptors with the largest correlation coefficients are used in the curve fit to create a property prediction equation. There is no rigorous way to determine how large a correlation coefficient is acceptable. 

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This is the domain of establishing Structure-Property or Structure-Activity Relationships (SPR or SAR), or even of finding such relationships in a quantitative manner (QSPR or QSAR). 

As another example, we shall consider the influence of the number of descriptors on the quality of learning. Lucic et. al. [3] performed a study on QSPR models employing connectivity indices as descriptors. The dataset contained 18 isomers of octane. The physical property for modehng was boiling points. The authors were among those who introduced the technique of orthogonahzation of descriptors. 

All the techniques described above can be used to calculate molecular structures and energies. Which other properties are important for chemoinformatics Most applications have used semi-empirical theory to calculate properties or descriptors, but ab-initio and DFT are equally applicable. In the following, we describe some typical properties and descriptors that have been used in quantitative structure-activity (QSAR) and structure-property (QSPR) relationships. 

Molecular dipole moments are often used as descriptors in QPSR models. They are calculated reliably by most quantum mechanical techniques, not least because they are part of the parameterization data for semi-empirical MO techniques. Higher multipole moments are especially easily available from semi-empirical calculations using the natural atomic orbital-point charge (NAO-PC) technique [40], but can also be calculated rehably using ab-initio or DFT methods. They have been used for some QSPR models. 

The molecular electronic polarizability is one of the most important descriptors used in QSPR models. Paradoxically, although it is an electronic property, it is often easier to calculate the polarizability by an additive method (see Section 7.1) than quantum mechanically. Ah-initio and DFT methods need very large basis sets before they give accurate polarizabilities. Accurate molecular polarizabilities are available from semi-empirical MO calculations very easily using a modified version of a simple variational technique proposed by Rivail and co-workers [41]. The molecular electronic polarizability correlates quite strongly with the molecular volume, although there are many cases where both descriptors are useful in QSPR models. 

The MEP at the molecular surface has been used for many QSAR and QSPR applications. Quantum mechanically calculated MEPs are more detailed and accurate at the important areas of the surface than those derived from net atomic charges and are therefore usually preferable [Ij. However, any of the techniques based on MEPs calculated from net atomic charges can be used for full quantum mechanical calculations, and vice versa. The best-known descriptors based on the statistics of the MEP at the molecular surface are those introduced by Murray and Politzer [44]. These were originally formulated for DFT calculations using an isodensity surface. They have also been used very extensively with semi-empirical MO techniques and solvent-accessible surfaces [1, 2]. The charged polar surface area (CPSA) descriptors proposed by Stanton and Jurs [45] are also based on charges derived from semi-empirical MO calculations. 

To know what QSAR and QSPR are, and the steps in QSAR/QSPR. 

A challenging task in material science as well as in pharmaceutical research is to custom tailor a compound s properties. George S. Hammond stated that the most fundamental and lasting objective of synthesis is not production of new compounds, but production of properties (Norris Award Lecture, 1968). The molecular structure of an organic or inorganic compound determines its properties. Nevertheless, methods for the direct prediction of a compound s properties based on its molecular structure are usually not available (Figure 8-1). Therefore, the establishment of Quantitative Structure-Property Relationships (QSPRs) and Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs) uses an indirect approach in order to tackle this problem. In the first step, numerical descriptors encoding information about the molecular structure are calculated for a set of compounds. Secondly, statistical and artificial neural network models are used to predict the property or activity of interest based on these descriptors or a suitable subset. 

The method of building predictive models in QSPR/QSAR can also be applied to the modeling of materials without a unique, clearly defined structure. Instead of the connection table, physicochemical data as well as spectra reflecting the compound s structure can be used as molecular descriptors for model building,... 

Quantum chemical descriptors such as atomic charges, HOMO and LUMO energies, HOMO and LUMO orbital energy differences, atom-atom polarizabilities, super-delocalizabilities, molecular polarizabilities, dipole moments, and energies sucb as the beat of formation, ionization potential, electron affinity, and energy of protonation are applicable in QSAR/QSPR studies. A review is given by Karelson et al. [45]. 

The QSPR/QSAR methodology can also be applied to materials and mixtures where no structural information is available. Instead of descriptors derived from the compound s structure, various physicochemical properties, including spectra, can be used. In particular, spectra are valuable in this context as they reflect the structure in a sensitive way. 

Two approaches to quantify/fQ, i.e., to establish a quantitative relationship between the structural features of a compoimd and its properties, are described in this section quantitative structure-property relationships (QSPR) and linear free energy relationships (LFER) cf. Section 3.4.2.2). The LFER approach is important for historical reasons because it contributed the first attempt to predict the property of a compound from an analysis of its structure. LFERs can be established only for congeneric series of compounds, i.e., sets of compounds that share the same skeleton and only have variations in the substituents attached to this skeleton. As examples of a QSPR approach, currently available methods for the prediction of the octanol/water partition coefficient, log P, and of aqueous solubility, log S, of organic compoimds are described in Section 10.1.4 and Section 10.15, respectively. 

Furthermore, QSPR models for the prediction of free-energy based properties that are based on multilinear regression analysis are often referred to as LFER models, especially, in the wide field of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR). 

The general procedure in a QSPR approach consists of three steps structure representation descriptor analysis and model building (see also Chapter X, Section 1.2 of the Handbook). 

Descriptors have to be found representing the structural features which are related to the target property. This is the most important step in QSPR, and the development of powerful descriptors is of central interest in this field. Descriptors can range from simple atom- or functional group counts to quantum chemical descriptors. They can be derived on the basis of the connectivity (topological or... 

D descriptors), the 3D structure, or the molecular surface (3D descriptors) of a structure. Which kind of descriptors should or can be used is primarily dependent on the si2e of the data set to be studied and the required accuracy for example, if a QSPR model is intended to be used for hundreds of thousands of compounds, a somehow reduced accuracy will probably be acceptable for the benefit of short processing times. Chapter 8 gives a detailed introduction to the calculation methods for molecular descriptors. 

Figure 10.1-1. Flow chart for the general model building process in QSPR studies.

Recently, several QSPR solubility prediction models based on a fairly large and diverse data set were generated. Huuskonen developed the models using MLRA and back-propagation neural networks (BPG) on a data set of 1297 diverse compoimds [22]. The compounds were described by 24 atom-type E-state indices and six other topological indices. For the 413 compoimds in the test set, MLRA gave = 0.88 and s = 0.71 and neural network provided... 

In order to develop a proper QSPR model for solubility prediction, the first task is to select appropriate input deseriptors that are highly correlated with solubility. Clearly, many factors influence solubility - to name but a few, the si2e of a molecule, the polarity of the molecule, and the ability of molecules to participate in hydrogen honding. For a large diverse data set, some indicators for describing the differences in the molecules are also important. 

We know that every QSPR model is limited by tbe data set that is used for building the model. In order to examine the diversity of this data set (the Huuskonen... 

Building a QSPR model consists of three steps descriptor calculation, descriptor analysis and optimization, and establishment of a mathematical relationship between descriptors and property. 

It is important to realize that many important processes, such as retention times in a given chromatographic column, are not just a simple aspect of a molecule. These are actually statistical averages of all possible interactions of that molecule and another. These sorts of processes can only be modeled on a molecular level by obtaining many results and then using a statistical distribution of those results. In some cases, group additivities or QSPR methods may be substituted. 

QSPR methods have yielded the most accurate results. Most often, they use large expansions of parameters obtainable from semiempirical calculations along with other less computationally intensive properties. This is often the method of choice for small molecules. 

A similar technique is to derive a group additivity method. In this method, a contribution for each functional group must be determined. The contributions for the functional groups composing the molecule are then added. This is usually done from computations on a whole list of molecules using a htting technique, similar to that employed in QSPR. 

The process described in the preceding paragraphs has seen widespread use. This is partly because it has been automated very well in the more sophisticated QSPR programs. 

The development of group additivity methods is very similar to the development of a QSPR method. Group additivity methods can be useful for properties that are additive by nature, such as the molecular volume. For most properties, QSPR is superior to group additivity techniques. 

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