Identification of novel small molecule inhibitors for solute carrier SGLT1 using proteochemometric modeling

Sodium-dependent glucose co-transporter 1 (SGLT1) is a solute carrier responsible for active glucose absorption. SGLT1 is present in both the renal tubules and small intestine. In contrast, the closely related sodium-dependent glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2), a protein that is targeted in the treatment of diabetes type II, is only expressed in the renal tubules. Although dual inhibitors for both SGLT1 and SGLT2 have been developed, no drugs on the market are targeted at decreasing dietary glucose uptake by SGLT1 in the gastrointestinal tract. Here we aim at identifying SGLT1 inhibitors in silico by applying a machine learning approach that does not require structural information, which is absent for SGLT1. We applied proteochemometrics by implementation of compound- and protein-based information into random forest models. We obtained a predictive model with a sensitivity of 0.64 ± 0.06, specificity of 0.93 ± 0.01, positive predictive value of 0.47 ± 0.07, negative predictive value of 0.96 ± 0.01, and Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.49 ± 0.05. Subsequent to model training, we applied our model in virtual screening to identify novel SGLT1 inhibitors. Of the 77 tested compounds, 30 were experimentally confirmed for SGLT1-inhibiting activity in vitro, leading to a hit rate of 39% with activities in the low micromolar range. Moreover, the hit compounds included novel molecules, which is reflected by the low similarity of these compounds with the training set (< 0.3). Conclusively, proteochemometric modeling of SGLT1 is a viable strategy for identifying active small molecules. Therefore, this method may also be applied in detection of novel small molecules for other transporter proteins.