Title:Computational Drug Repositioning by Target Hopping: A Use Case in Chagas Disease
Volume: 22
Issue: 21
Author(s): V. Joachim Haupt, Jesús E. Aguilar Uvalle, Sebastian Salentin, Simone Daminelli, Franziska Leonhardt, Janez Konc and Michael Schroeder
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Drug repositioning, drug re-purposing, structural bioinformatics, structure alignment, drug discovery,
Chagas disease, target hopping.
Abstract: Background: Drug repositioning aims to identify novel indications for existing drugs. One approach to
repositioning exploits shared binding sites between the drug targets and other proteins. Here, we review the principle
and algorithms of such target hopping and illustrate them in Chagas disease, an in Latin America widely
spread, but neglected disease. Conclusion: We demonstrate how target hopping recovers known treatments for
Chagas disease and predicts novel drugs, such as the antiviral foscarnet, which we predict to target Farnesyl Pyrophosphate
Synthase in Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease.