Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 30, 2026

Incorporating Target Protein Structure Flexibility and Dynamics in Computational Drug Discovery Using Ensemble-Based Docking Analysis
Published on: June 20, 2025
Flexible ligand docking using evolutionary algorithms: investigating the effects of variation operators and local
1EVALife Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Ny Munkegade, Bldg. 540, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. thomsen@daimi.au.dk
Abstract:
The docking of ligands to proteins can be formulated as a computational problem where the task is to find the most favorable energetic conformation among the large space of possible protein-ligand complexes. Stochastic search methods such as evolutionary algorithms (EAs) can be used to sample large search spaces effectively and is one of the commonly used methods for flexible ligand docking. During the last decade, several EAs using different variation operators have been introduced, such as the ones provided with the AutoDock program. In this paper we evaluate the performance of different EA settings such as choice of variation operators, population size, and usage of local search. The comparison is performed on a suite of six docking problems previously used to evaluate the performance of search algorithms provided with the AutoDock program package. The results from our investigation confirm that the choice of variation operators has an impact on the search-capabilities of EAs. The introduced DockEA using the best settings found obtained the overall best docking solutions compared to the Lamarckian GA (LGA) provided with AutoDock. Furthermore, the DockEA proved to be more robust than the LGA (in terms of reproducing the results in several runs) on the more difficult problems with a high number of flexible torsion angles.
More Related Videos
10:01Structure-Guided Design and Development of Novel Cyclophilin A Inhibitors and Ganoderiol-F Derivatives: An In-Silico Approach
Published on: June 23, 2026
14:34A Bilingual Computational Workflow for Identifying Potential PLK1 Inhibitors in American Sign Language and English
Published on: April 3, 2026
Related Concept Videos
Ligand Binding and Linkage
Ligand Binding and Linkage
Conserved Binding Sites
Binding sites are often located in large pockets, and if their location on a protein’s surface is unknown, it can be predicted using various approaches. The energetic method computationally analyses the...
Ligand Binding Sites
Protein-ligand interactions are quite specific; even though numerous potential ligands surround a cellular protein at any given time, only a particular ligand can bind to that protein. Moreover, a ligand binds only to a dedicated area on the surface of the protein, known as the...
Ligand Binding Sites
Protein-ligand interactions are quite specific; even though numerous potential ligands surround a cellular protein at any given time, only a particular ligand can bind to that protein. Moreover, a ligand binds only to a dedicated area on the surface of the protein, known as the...
The Equilibrium Binding Constant and Binding Strength