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Updated: Dec 4, 2025

Achieving Efficient Fragment Screening at XChem Facility at Diamond Light Source
Published on: May 29, 2021
Data set of activity cliffs with single-atom modification and associated X-ray structure information for medicinal
1Department of Life Science Informatics, B-IT, LIMES Program Unit Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Endenicher Allee 19c, D-53115 Bonn, Germany.
Abstract:
Activity cliffs (ACs) are defined as pairs of structurally similar or analogous active compounds with large potency differences [1]. As such, they provide important information for the exploration of structure-activity relationships (SARs) and chemical optimization. We have introduced a new category of ACs capturing minimal (single-atom) chemical modifications and identified more than 1500 of such ACs in compounds with activity against a variety of target proteins [2]. ACs with single-atom modifications (sam_ACs) include "atom-replacement ACs" (ar_ACs) that contain a single-atom replacement (N to C (N-C), O-C, N-O, or S-O) at a given position and "atom-walk ACs" (aw_ACs), in which two analogs are only distinguished by the position of a single heteroatom (non-carbon atom). For a number of sam_ACs, X-ray structures of complexes between AC targets and AC compounds were identified, which made it possible to explore the formation of sam_ACs on the basis of well-defined ligand-target interactions [2]. Our collection of sam_ACs including associated chemical and X-ray structure information, as described herein, is made freely available.
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