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Published on: December 9, 2015
Meta-basic estimates the size of druggable human genome
Dariusz Plewczynski1, Leszek Rychlewski
1Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modeling, University of Warsaw, Pawinskiego 5a, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland. D.Plewczynski@icm.edu.pl
This study estimates that 20% of human proteins are potential therapeutic targets for drug development. Bioinformatics analysis identified approximately 6300 druggable human proteins using sequence similarity to known drug targets.
Area of Science:
- Bioinformatics
- Medicinal Chemistry
- Genomics
Background:
- Identifying novel therapeutic targets is crucial for drug discovery.
- The human genome encodes a vast number of proteins, many of which remain unexplored for therapeutic potential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate the upper limit of druggable molecular targets within the human genome.
- To identify potential protein targets for small-molecule drug design.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the DrugBank database to identify known protein targets.
- Employed the Meta-BASIC remote homology detection method based on sequence and structural similarity.
- Selected approximately 6300 human proteins similar to known targets.
Main Results:
- Estimated that approximately 20% of the human proteome is druggable.
- Generated a dataset of predicted protein targets from the human genome.
Conclusions:
- The identified 'druggable' proteome offers significant opportunities for new drug development.
- The dataset is valuable for developing and benchmarking in silico drug discovery methods, including virtual high-throughput screening.
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