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Updated: Mar 22, 2026

Incorporating Target Protein Structure Flexibility and Dynamics in Computational Drug Discovery Using Ensemble-Based Docking Analysis
Published on: June 20, 2025
Computational protein-ligand docking and virtual drug screening with the AutoDock suite
Stefano Forli1, Ruth Huey1, Michael E Pique1
1Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA.
Abstract:
Computational docking can be used to predict bound conformations and free energies of binding for small-molecule ligands to macromolecular targets. Docking is widely used for the study of biomolecular interactions and mechanisms, and it is applied to structure-based drug design. The methods are fast enough to allow virtual screening of ligand libraries containing tens of thousands of compounds. This protocol covers the docking and virtual screening methods provided by the AutoDock suite of programs, including a basic docking of a drug molecule with an anticancer target, a virtual screen of this target with a small ligand library, docking with selective receptor flexibility, active site prediction and docking with explicit hydration. The entire protocol will require ∼5 h.
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