Quantitative structure-activity relationship analysis of functionalized amino acid anticonvulsant agents using k nearest neighbor and simulated annealing PLS methods.

We report the development of rigorously validated quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models for 48 chemically diverse functionalized amino acids with anticonvulsant activity. Two variable selection approaches, simulated annealing partial least squares (SA-PLS) and k nearest neighbor (kNN), were employed. Both methods utilize multiple descriptors such as molecular connectivity indices or atom pair descriptors, which are derived from two-dimensional molecular topology. QSAR models with high internal accuracy were generated, with leave-one-out cross-validated R(2) (q(2)) values ranging between 0.6 and 0.8. The q(2) values for the actual dataset were significantly higher than those obtained for the same dataset with randomly shuffled activity values, indicating that models were statistically significant. The original dataset was further divided into several training and test sets, with highly predictive models providing q(2) values greater than 0.5 for the training sets and R(2) values greater than 0.6 for the test sets. These models were capable of predicting with reasonable accuracy the activity of 13 novel compounds not included in the original dataset. The successful development of highly predictive QSAR models affords further design and discovery of novel anticonvulsant agents.