QSAR and complex network study of the chiral HMGR inhibitor structural diversity

Efficient drugs such as statins or mevinic acids are inhibitors of the rate-limiting enzyme of cholesterol biosynthesis, 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR), an enzyme responsible for the double reduction of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl coenzyme A into mevalonic acid. These compounds promoted the synthesis and evaluation of new inhibitors for HMGR, named HMGRIs. The high number of possible candidates creates the necessity of Quantitative Structure–Activity Relationship models in order to guide the HMGRI synthesis. There are two main problems of the reported QSAR models: the homogeneous series of the compounds and the chirality of many candidates. In this work, we propose for the first time a QSAR model for a very large and heterogeneous series of HMGRIs. The model is based on the Topological Indices (TIs) of molecular structures. Using the predictions of this model as input, we construct the first complex network that describes the drug–drug similarity relationships for more than 1600 experimentally non-explored chiral HMGRIs isomers. We also presented a reduced version of this network (Giant Component) that contains the most representative set of chiral HMGRI candidates. The work suggests a new mixed application in the QSAR study of relevant aspects of structural diversity by using chiral/non-chiral TIs, combined with complex networks.

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