초록
Since it is of great importance to know how a ligand binds to a receptor, there have been a lot of efforts to improve the quality of prediction of docking poses. Earlier efforts were focused on improving search algorithm and scoring function in a docking program resulting in a partial improvement with a lot of variations. Although these are basically very important and essential, more tangible improvements came from the reduction of search space. In a normal docking study, the approximate active site is assumed to be known. After defining active site, scoring functions and search algorithms are used to locate the expected binding pose within this search space. A good search algorithm will sample wisely toward the correct binding pose. By careful study of receptor structure, it was possible to prioritize sub-space in the active site using "receptor-based pharmacophores" or "hot spots". In a sense, these techniques reduce the search space from the beginning. Further improvements were made when the bound ligand structure is available, i.e., the searching could be directed by molecular similarity using ligand information. This could be very helpful to increase the accuracy of binding pose. In addition, if the biological activity data is available, docking program could be improved to the level of being useful in affinity prediction for a series of congeneric ligands. Since the number of co-crystal structures is increasing in protein databank, "Ligand-Guided Docking" to reduce the search space would be more important to improve the accuracy of docking pose prediction and the efficiency of virtual screening. Further improvements in this area would be useful to produce more reliable docking programs.
