MM-PBSA and the Importance of the Dielectric Constant for Kinase Drug Design
Predicting the interactions between a set of small molecules and its target plays a critical role in drug discovery and development. Especially in later stages of the drug design process, when a reduced set of molecules is in focus, reliable and accurate binding affinity estimations are important for targeted modifications of given lead molecules.<div><div>Current limitations in affinity prediction originate from the lack of accurate estimates for solvation energy and entropy. MM-PBSA and the related MM-GBSA aim at providing better estimates.</div><div>From our studies we infer that the common approach using one dielectric constant for the binding pocket may be misleading (here in the case of a kinase), especially when designed ligands/drugs contain charges. Thus, a range of selected values for the solute dielectric constant is preferred for better and more reliable comparisons.</div></div>