The Biophore Concept

Complementary groups on the protein target recognize key features of the ligand. The three-dimensional arrangement of these features is commonly referred to as a pharmacophore. The Medicinal Chemistry Section of lUPAC has published a glossary of terms used in medicinal chemistry that includes an entry for the concept pharmacophore or pharmacophoric pattern.  

In a clarification of this statement the definition goes on to state  

The imphcation within this definition is that compounds, which share a pharmacophoric pattern pertinent to a particular target, are likely to bind to the said target. There are several important caveats to this statement that should be kept in mind. First, as defined, a pharmacophore is necessary but not sufficient for activity. The binding energy will be determined by other properties of the molecule not imphed by the pharmacophore, e.g., additional groups could lead to a steric clash with the 

Protein-Ligand Interactions From Molecular Recognition to Drug Design. Edited by H.-J. Bohm and G. Schneider 

Copyright 2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH Co. KGaA, Weinheim ISBN 3-527-30521-1 

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The biophore concept provides a framework for the understanding of hgand-pro-tein interactions in terms of the key interacting groups on the hgand and protein. This abstraction enables the generation of models that are intuitive and at the same time broadly applicable. The applications discussed herein show the usefulness of this approach. The biophore concept, which first had an impact mainly in... 

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