Dataset Information

Substituting random forest for multiple linear regression improves binding affinity prediction of scoring functions: Cyscore as a case study.

ABSTRACT: State-of-the-art protein-ligand docking methods are generally limited by the traditionally low accuracy of their scoring functions, which are used to predict binding affinity and thus vital for discriminating between active and inactive compounds. Despite intensive research over the years, classical scoring functions have reached a plateau in their predictive performance. These assume a predetermined additive functional form for some sophisticated numerical features, and use standard multivariate linear regression (MLR) on experimental data to derive the coefficients.In this study we show that such a simple functional form is detrimental for the prediction performance of a scoring function, and replacing linear regression by machine learning techniques like random forest (RF) can improve prediction performance. We investigate the conditions of applying RF under various contexts and find that given sufficient training samples RF manages to comprehensively capture the non-linearity between structural features and measured binding affinities. Incorporating more structural features and training with more samples can both boost RF performance. In addition, we analyze the importance of structural features to binding affinity prediction using the RF variable importance tool. Lastly, we use Cyscore, a top performing empirical scoring function, as a baseline for comparison study.Machine-learning scoring functions are fundamentally different from classical scoring functions because the former circumvents the fixed functional form relating structural features with binding affinities. RF, but not MLR, can effectively exploit more structural features and more training samples, leading to higher prediction performance. The future availability of more X-ray crystal structures will further widen the performance gap between RF-based and MLR-based scoring functions. This further stresses the importance of substituting RF for MLR in scoring function development.

SUBMITTER: Li H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4153907 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Substituting random forest for multiple linear regression improves binding affinity prediction of scoring functions: Cyscore as a case study.

Li Hongjian H Leung Kwong-Sak KS Wong Man-Hon MH Ballester Pedro J PJ

BMC bioinformatics 20140827

<h4>Background</h4>State-of-the-art protein-ligand docking methods are generally limited by the traditionally low accuracy of their scoring functions, which are used to predict binding affinity and thus vital for discriminating between active and inactive compounds. Despite intensive research over the years, classical scoring functions have reached a plateau in their predictive performance. These assume a predetermined additive functional form for some sophisticated numerical features, and use s ...[more]

PMID: 25159129

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Current scoring functions are not very successful in protein-ligand binding affinity prediction albeit their popularity in structure-based drug designs. Here, we propose a general knowledge-guided scoring (KGS) strategy to tackle this problem. Our KGS strategy computes the binding constant of a given protein-ligand complex based on the known binding constant of an appropriate reference complex. A good training set that includes a sufficient number of protein-ligand complexes with known binding data needs to be supplied for finding the reference complex. The reference complex is required to share a similar pattern of key protein-ligand interactions to that of the complex of interest. Thus, some uncertain factors in protein-ligand binding may cancel out, resulting in a more accurate prediction of absolute binding constants. RESULTS: In our study, an automatic algorithm was developed for summarizing key protein-ligand interactions as a pharmacophore model and identifying the reference complex with a maximal similarity to the query complex. Our KGS strategy was evaluated in combination with two scoring functions (X-Score and PLP) on three test sets, containing 112 HIV protease complexes, 44 carbonic anhydrase complexes, and 73 trypsin complexes, respectively. Our results obtained on crystal structures as well as computer-generated docking poses indicated that application of the KGS strategy produced more accurate predictions especially when X-Score or PLP alone did not perform well. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to other targeted scoring functions, our KGS strategy does not require any re-parameterization or modification on current scoring methods, and its application is not tied to certain systems. The effectiveness of our KGS strategy is in theory proportional to the ever-increasing knowledge of experimental protein-ligand binding data. Our KGS strategy may serve as a more practical remedy for current scoring functions to improve their accuracy in binding affinity prediction.

Dataset Information

Substituting random forest for multiple linear regression improves binding affinity prediction of scoring functions: Cyscore as a case study.

Publications

Substituting random forest for multiple linear regression improves binding affinity prediction of scoring functions: Cyscore as a case study.

Similar Datasets

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