Druglikeness is a qualitative concept used in

drug design Drug design, often referred to as rational drug design or simply rational design, is the inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of a biological target. The drug is most commonly an organic small molecule that acti ...

for how "druglike" a substance is with respect to factors like

bioavailability In pharmacology, bioavailability is a subcategory of absorption and is the fraction (%) of an administered drug that reaches the systemic circulation. By definition, when a medication is administered intravenously, its bioavailability is 100%. H ...

. It is estimated from the molecular structure before the substance is even synthesized and tested. A druglike molecule has properties such as: *Solubility in both water and fat, as an orally administered drug needs to pass through the intestinal lining after it is consumed, be carried in aqueous

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

and penetrate the lipid-based cell membrane to reach the inside of a cell. A model compound for the

lipophilic Lipophilicity (from Greek λίπος "fat" and φίλος "friendly"), refers to the ability of a chemical compound to dissolve in fats, oils, lipids, and non-polar solvents such as hexane or toluene. Such non-polar solvents are themselves lipop ...

cellular membrane is

1-octanol 1-Octanol, also known as octan-1-ol, is the organic compound with the molecular formula CH3(CH2)7OH. It is a fatty alcohol. Many other isomers are also known generically as octanols. 1-Octanol is manufactured for the synthesis of esters for use ...

(a lipophilic medium-chain fatty alcohol), so the logarithm of the

octanol-water partition coefficient The ''n''-octanol-water partition coefficient, ''K''ow is a partition coefficient for the two-phase system consisting of ''n''-octanol and water. ''K''ow is also frequently referred to by the symbol P, especially in the English literature. It is a ...

, known as LogP, is used to predict the solubility of a potential oral drug. This coefficient can be experimentally measured or predicted computationally, in which case it is sometimes called "cLogP". As the lipophilicity of ionizable compounds is strongly dependent of pH, the distribution coefficient logD, or a logP vs pH curve may be used instead. *Potency at the

biological target A biological target is anything within a living organism to which some other entity (like an endogenous ligand or a drug) is directed and/or binds, resulting in a change in its behavior or function. Examples of common classes of biological targets ...

. High

potency Potency may refer to: * Potency (pharmacology), a measure of the activity of a drug in a biological system * Virility * Cell potency, a measure of the differentiation potential of stem cells * In homeopathic dilutions, potency is a measure of how ...

(high value of p IC₅₀) is a desirable attribute in drug candidates, as it reduces the risk of non-specific, off-target pharmacology at a given concentration. When associated with low clearance, high potency also allows for low total dose, which lowers the risk of

idiosyncratic drug reaction Idiosyncratic drug reactions, also known as type B reactions, are drug reactions that occur rarely and unpredictably amongst the population. This is not to be mistaken with idiopathic, which implies that the cause is not known. They frequently oc ...

s. *

Ligand efficiency Ligand efficiency is a measurement of the binding energy per atom of a ligand to its binding partner, such as a receptor or enzyme. Ligand efficiency is used in drug discovery research programs to assist in narrowing focus to lead compounds with ...

and

lipophilic efficiency Lipophilic efficiency (LiPE), sometimes referred to as ligand-lipophilicity efficiency (LLE) is a parameter used in drug design and drug discovery to evaluate the quality of research compounds, linking potency and lipophilicity in an attempt to es ...

. *Molecular weight: The smaller the better, because

diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...

is directly affected. The great majority of drugs on the market have molecular weights between 200 and 600 Daltons, and particularly <500; they belong to the group of

small molecule Within the fields of molecular biology and pharmacology, a small molecule or micromolecule is a low molecular weight (≤ 1000 daltons) organic compound that may regulate a biological process, with a size on the order of 1 nm. Many drugs ar ...

s. A traditional method to evaluate druglikeness is to check compliance of

Lipinski's Rule of Five Lipinski's rule of five, also known as Pfizer's rule of five or simply the rule of five (RO5), is a rule of thumb to evaluate druglikeness or determine if a chemical compound with a certain pharmacological or biological activity has chemical prop ...

, which covers the numbers of hydrophilic groups, molecular weight and hydrophobicity. Since the drug is transported in aqueous media like blood and intracellular fluid, it has to be sufficiently water-soluble in the absolute sense (i.e. must have a minimum chemical solubility in order to be effective). Solubility in water can be estimated from the number of

hydrogen bond In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (or H-bond) is a primarily electrostatic force of attraction between a hydrogen (H) atom which is covalently bound to a more electronegative "donor" atom or group (Dn), and another electronegative atom bearing a ...

donors vs. alkyl sidechains in the molecule. Low water solubility translates to slow absorption and action. Too many hydrogen bond donors, on the other hand, lead to low fat solubility, so that the drug cannot penetrate the cell membrane to reach the inside of the cell. Based on one definition, a drug-like molecule has a logarithm of partition coefficient (log P) between -0.4 and 5.6, molecular weight 160-480 g/mol, molar refractivity of 40-130, which is related to the volume and molecular weight of the molecule and has 20-70 atoms. Substructures with known toxic,

mutagen In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that permanently changes nucleic acid, genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations can ca ...

ic or

teratogenic Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. The related t ...

properties affect the usefulness of a designed molecule. However, several

poison Poison is a chemical substance that has a detrimental effect to life. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figuratively, with a broa ...

s have a good druglikeness. Natural toxins are used in pharmacological research to find out their mechanism of action, and if it could be exploited for beneficial purposes. Alkylnitro compounds tend to be irritants, and Michael acceptors, such as enones, are

alkylating agent Alkylation is the transfer of an alkyl group from one molecule to another. The alkyl group may be transferred as an alkyl carbocation, a free radical, a carbanion, or a carbene (or their equivalents). Alkylating agents are reagents for effecting al ...

s and thus potentially

mutagenic In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that permanently changes genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations can cause cancer in ...

and

carcinogenic A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...

. Druglikeness indices are inherently limited tools. Druglikeness can be estimated for any molecule, and does not evaluate the actual specific effect that the drug achieves (

biological activity In pharmacology, biological activity or pharmacological activity describes the beneficial or adverse effects of a drug on living matter. When a drug is a complex chemical mixture, this activity is exerted by the substance's active ingredient or ...

). Simple rules are not always accurate and may unnecessarily limit the chemical space to search: many best-selling drugs have features that cause them to score low on various druglikeness indices. Furthermore,

first-pass metabolism The first pass effect (also known as first-pass metabolism or presystemic metabolism) is a phenomenon of drug metabolism whereby the concentration of a drug, specifically when administered orally, is greatly reduced before it reaches the systemi ...

, which is biochemically selective, can destroy the pharmacological activity of a compound despite good druglikeness. Druglikeness is not relevant for most

biologics A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, th ...

, since they are usually proteins that need to be injected, because proteins are digested if eaten.

References

External links

OSIRIS Property Explorer: Prediction of druglikeness

molinspiration
free drug-likeness and bioactivity calculator {{Medicinal chemistry Drug discovery Medicinal chemistry

See also

References

External links