Evaluation of machine learning models for cytochrome P450 3A4, 2D6, and 2C9 inhibition

Cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes are involved in the metabolism of approximately 75% of marketed drugs. Inhibition of the major drug-metabolizing P450s could alter drug metabolism and lead to undesirable drug-drug interactions. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the inhibition of P450s in drug discovery. Currently, machine learning including deep learning algorithms has been widely used for constructing in silico models for the prediction of P450 inhibition. These models exhibited varying predictive performance depending on the use of machine learning algorithms and molecular representations. This leads to the difficulty in the selection of appropriate models for practical use. In this study, we systematically evaluated the conventional machine learning and deep learning models for three major P450 enzymes, CYP3A4, CYP2D6, and CYP2C9 from several perspectives, such as algorithms, molecular representation, and data partitioning strategies. Our results showed that the XGBoost and CatBoost algorithms coupled with the combined fingerprint/physicochemical descriptor features exhibited the best performance with Area Under Curve (AUC)  of 0.92, while the deep learning models were generally inferior to the conventional machine learning models (average AUC reached 0.89) on the same test sets. We also found that data volume and sampling strategy had a minor effect on model performance. We anticipate that these results are helpful for the selection of molecular representations and machine learning/deep learning algorithms in the P450 model construction and the future model development of P450 inhibition.