Title:Growing Preferences towards Analog-based Drug Discovery
Volume: 22
Issue: 8
Author(s): Mehak Dangi, Alka Khichi, Ritu Jakhar and Anil K. Chhillar*
Affiliation:
- Centre for Bioinformatics, M.D. University, Rohtak-124001, Haryana,India
Keywords:
Derivatives, analogs, drug discovery, antimicrobial, in silico, pathogens.
Abstract:
Background: The major concern of today's time is the developing resistance in most of the
clinically derived pathogenic micro-organisms for available drugs through several mechanisms. Therefore,
there is a dire need to develop novel molecules with drug-like properties that can be effective
against the otherwise resistant micro-organisms.
Methods: New drugs can be developed using several methods like structure-based drug design, ligandbased
drug design, or by developing analogs of the available drugs to further improve their effects.
However, the smartness is to opt for the techniques that have comparatively less expenditure, lower
failure rates, and faster discovery rates.
Results: Analog-Based Drug Design (ABDD) is one such technique that researchers worldwide are
opting to develop new drug-like molecules with comparatively lower market values. They start by first
designing the analogs sharing structural and pharmacological similarities to the existing drugs. This
method embarks on scaffold structures of available drugs already approved by the clinical trials, but
are left ineffective because of resistance developed by the pathogens.
Conclusion: In this review, we have discussed some recent examples of anti-fungal and anti-bacterial
(antimicrobial) drugs that were designed based on the ABDD technique. Also, we have tried to focus
on the in silico tools and techniques that can contribute to the designing and computational screening
of the analogs, so that these can be further considered for in vitro screening to validate their better biological
activities against the pathogens with comparatively reduced rates of failure.
