Similarity cheminformatics-based

This well-established process of inference via similarity is not without error every once in a while the bioinformatics-based inference of protein function will be incorrect. Much more frequently, the cheminformatics-based inference of small molecule activity is in error, since slight changes in a molecule can dramatically affect its ability to bind. Hence, in cheminformatics, inference of function from similarity classification is less reliable than in bioinformatics. Because of this lack of reliability, inference in cheminformatics is thought of as an imperfect screening process, whose less than ideal performance is analyzed in terms of an enrichment factor (a measure of how much better the cheminformatic inference performs than random inference). 

Directly related to the similarity-searching methods are cheminformatics methods that try to align the chemical and biological spaces based on mapping procedures. 

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