Biology subjects

Kunnakkattu, I. R.

Publications and source records attributed to Kunnakkattu, I. R..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Large-scale analysis of ligand binding mode similarities in the PDB using interaction fingerprints

Three-dimensional structures of protein-ligand complexes are essential for insights into the molecular principles that govern ligand recognition and binding. With more than 180,000 ligand-bound entries in the Protein Data Bank (PDB), representing over two million individual complexes, the volume of available structural data offers unprecedented opportunities for large-scale analysis of interaction patterns. Analysis of interaction patterns across the PDB archive can help discover similarities and differences in the binding modes of ligands, assisting in drug discovery. However, large-scale analysis of up-to-date information remains a significant challenge due to the rapid growth of data. Here, we introduce the Extended Connectivity Interaction Fingerprint (ECIFP), an interaction-based fingerprint that simplifies 3D protein-ligand contact information into a fingerprint, while retaining key molecular and chemical features of the interacting fragments. The simpler fingerprint representation of the interaction data makes comparison of millions of protein-ligand complexes tractable. Benchmarking shows that ECIFP outperforms ligand-only Extended Connectivity Fingerprints in identifying similar binding sites across identical protein sequences occupied by chemically diverse ligands. Our analysis showed that similarities calculated using ECIFP can be used to compare macromolecular complexes with similar or different ligands. In this study, we demonstrate two large-scale applications of ECIFP: (1) identification of distinct binding modes for over 9,000 ligands across the entire PDB, and (2) detection of binding-mode similarities among structurally diverse ligands within the same binding site across 48,870 binding sites from over 21,000 proteins.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2024

PDBe tools for an in-depth analysis of small molecules in the Protein Data Bank

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is the primary global repository for experimentally determined 3D structures of biological macromolecules and their complexes with ligands, proteins, and nucleic acids. PDB contains over 47,000 unique small molecules bound to the macromolecules. Despite the extensive data available, the complexity of small molecule data in the PDB necessitates specialised tools for effective analysis and visualisation. PDBe has developed a number of tools, including PDBe CCDUtils (https://github.com/PDBeurope/ccdutils) for accessing and enriching ligand data, PDBe Arpeggio (https://github.com/PDBeurope/arpeggio) for analysing interactions between ligands and macromolecules, and PDBe RelLig (https://github.com/PDBeurope/rellig) for identifying the functional roles of ligands (such as reactants, cofactors, or drug-like molecules) within protein-ligand complexes. Furthermore, the enhanced ligand annotations and data generated by these tools are presented in a comprehensive view on the novel PDBe-KB ligand pages, providing a holistic view of small molecules that enables the establishment of their biological contexts (Example page for Imatinib: https://wwwdev.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe-srv/pdbechem/chemicalCompound/show/STI). By improving the standardisation of ligand identification, adding various annotations, and offering advanced visualisation capabilities, these tools help researchers navigate the complexities of small molecules and their roles in biological systems, facilitating mechanistic understanding of biological functions. The ongoing enhancements to these resources are designed to support the scientific community in gaining valuable insights into ligands and their applications across various fields, including drug discovery, molecular biology, systems biology, structural biology, and pharmacology.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2023

PDBe CCDUtils: an RDKit-based toolkit for handling and analysing small molecules in the Protein Data Bank

While the Protein Data Bank (PDB) contains a wealth of structural information on ligands bound to macromolecules, their analysis can be challenging due to the large amount and diversity of data. Here, we present PDBe CCDUtils, a versatile toolkit for processing and analysing small molecules from the PDB in PDBx/mmCIF format. PDBe CCDUtils provides streamlined access to all the metadata for small molecules in the PDB and offers a set of convenient methods to compute various properties using RDKit, such as 2D depictions, 3D conformers, physicochemical properties, scaffolds, common fragments and cross-references to small molecule databases using UniChem. The toolkit also provides methods for identifying all the covalently attached chemical components in a macromolecular structure and calculating similarity among small molecules. By providing a broad range of functionality, PDBe CCDUtils caters to the needs of researchers in cheminformatics, structural biology, bioinformatics and computational chemistry.

bioinformatics↗