Protein flexibility and drug design: How to hit a moving target

Heather A. Carlson, University of Michigan.
 

The use of multiple protein structures (MPS) is a growing trend in structure-based drug design. Different techniques will be discussed, and our MPS method for developing receptor-based pharmacophore models will be highlighted. By using MPS, we are able to identify flexible and rigid regions within the binding site and use that information to our advantage. An additional advantage of the method is that an unbound protein structure can be used sucessfully for structure-based inhibitor design !