Project description:Target protein-based drug and research compound discovery has been undeniably successful strategy in life science research, yet many diseases and biological processes lack obvious targets to enable these approaches. Here, to overcome this major challenge we have developed a deep-learning based efficacy prediction system (DLEPS) to identify potent agents to treat diverse diseases; DLEPS was trained using L1000 project chemical induced “changes of transcriptional profiles” (CTP) data as input. Strikingly, we found that the CTPs for previously unexamined molecules were precisely predicted (0.74 Pearson correlation coefficient). We used DLEPS to examine 4 disorders, and experimentally validated that perillen, chikusetsusaponin IV, trametinib, and liquiritin confer disease-relevant impacts against obesity, hyperuricemia, NASH, and COVID-19, respectively. Importantly, DLEPS also uncovered the biological insight that the MEK-ERK signaling pathway should be understood as a target for developing anti-NASH agents. Beyond illustrating that DLEPS is an effective tool for drug repurposing and development with diverse diseases (including those lacking targets), our study shows how diverse transcriptomics datasets can be harnessed to identify inhibitors and activator chemicals that can expand the scope of biological investigations well beyond mutant-bases analyses.
Project description:Target protein-based drug and research compound discovery has been undeniably successful strategy in life science research, yet many diseases and biological processes lack obvious targets to enable these approaches. Here, to overcome this major challenge we have developed a deep-learning based efficacy prediction system (DLEPS) to identify potent agents to treat diverse diseases; DLEPS was trained using L1000 project chemical induced “changes of transcriptional profiles” (CTP) data as input. Strikingly, we found that the CTPs for previously unexamined molecules were precisely predicted (0.74 Pearson correlation coefficient). We used DLEPS to examine 4 disorders, and experimentally validated that perillen, chikusetsusaponin IV, trametinib, and liquiritin confer disease-relevant impacts against obesity, hyperuricemia, NASH, and COVID-19, respectively. Importantly, DLEPS also uncovered the biological insight that the MEK-ERK signaling pathway should be understood as a target for developing anti-NASH agents. Beyond illustrating that DLEPS is an effective tool for drug repurposing and development with diverse diseases (including those lacking targets), our study shows how diverse transcriptomics datasets can be harnessed to identify inhibitors and activator chemicals that can expand the scope of biological investigations well beyond mutant-bases analyses.
Project description:Target protein-based drug and research compound discovery has been undeniably successful strategy in life science research, yet many diseases and biological processes lack obvious targets to enable these approaches. Here, to overcome this major challenge we have developed a deep-learning based efficacy prediction system (DLEPS) to identify potent agents to treat diverse diseases; DLEPS was trained using L1000 project chemical induced “changes of transcriptional profiles” (CTP) data as input. Strikingly, we found that the CTPs for previously unexamined molecules were precisely predicted (0.74 Pearson correlation coefficient). We used DLEPS to examine 4 disorders, and experimentally validated that perillen, chikusetsusaponin IV, trametinib, and liquiritin confer disease-relevant impacts against obesity, hyperuricemia, NASH, and COVID-19, respectively. Importantly, DLEPS also uncovered the biological insight that the MEK-ERK signaling pathway should be understood as a target for developing anti-NASH agents. Beyond illustrating that DLEPS is an effective tool for drug repurposing and development with diverse diseases (including those lacking targets), our study shows how diverse transcriptomics datasets can be harnessed to identify inhibitors and activator chemicals that can expand the scope of biological investigations well beyond mutant-bases analyses.
Project description:Blockade of the human ether-à-go-go-related gene (hERG) channel by small molecules induces the prolongation of the QT interval which leads to fatal cardiotoxicity and accounts for the withdrawal or severe restrictions on the use of many approved drugs. In this study, we develop a deep learning approach, termed deephERG, for prediction of hERG blockers of small molecules in drug discovery and postmarketing surveillance. In total, we assemble 7,889 compounds with well-defined experimental data on the hERG and with diverse chemical structures. We find that deephERG models built by a multitask deep neural network (DNN) algorithm outperform those built by single-task DNN, naı̈ve Bayes (NB), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and graph convolutional neural network (GCNN). Specifically, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) value for the best model of deephERG is 0.967 on the validation set. Furthermore, based on 1,824 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs, 29.6% drugs are computationally identified to have potential hERG inhibitory activities by deephERG, highlighting the importance of hERG risk assessment in early drug discovery. Finally, we showcase several novel predicted hERG blockers on approved antineoplastic agents, which are validated by clinical case reports, experimental evidence, and the literature. In summary, this study presents a powerful deep learning-based tool for risk assessment of hERG-mediated cardiotoxicities in drug discovery and postmarketing surveillance.
Project description:MicroRNAs are recognized as key drivers in many cancers but targeting them with small molecules remains a challenge. We present RiboStrike, a deep-learning framework that identifies small molecules against specific microRNAs. To demonstrate its capabilities, we applied it to microRNA-21 (miR-21), a known driver of breast cancer. To ensure selectivity toward miR-21, we performed counter-screens against miR-122 and DICER. Auxiliary models were used to evaluate toxicity and rank the candidates. Learning from various datasets, we screened a pool of nine million molecules and identified eight, three of which showed anti-miR-21 activity in both reporter assays and RNA sequencing experiments. Target selectivity of these compounds was assessed using microRNA profiling and RNA sequencing analysis. The top candidate was tested in a xenograft mouse model of breast cancer metastasis, demonstrating a significant reduction in lung metastases. These results demonstrate RiboStrike's ability to nominate compounds that target the activity of miRNAs in cancer.