FastGrow: on-the-fly growing and its application to DYRK1A

Fragment-based drug design is an established routine approach in both experimental and computational spheres. Growing fragment hits into viable ligands has increasingly shifted into the spotlight. FastGrow is an application based on a shape search algorithm that addresses this challenge at high speeds of a few milliseconds per fragment. It further features a pharmacophoric interaction description, ensemble flexibility, as well as geometry optimization to become a fully fledged structure-based modeling tool. All features were evaluated in detail on a previously reported collection of fragment growing scenarios extracted from crystallographic data. FastGrow was also shown to perform competitively versus established docking software. A case study on the DYRK1A kinase, using recently reported new chemotypes, illustrates FastGrow's features in practice and its ability to identify active fragments. FastGrow is freely available to the public as a web server at https://fastgrow.plus/ and is part of the SeeSAR 3D software package.

Automated summary

Fragment-based drug design is a commonly used method in drug development, and growing fragments into viable ligands is a significant challenge. FastGrow is an application based on a shape search algorithm that can rapidly address this challenge and also offers additional features, making it a comprehensive structure-based modeling tool. Through evaluation in various scenarios and comparison with other software, FastGrow has demonstrated its competitiveness and effectiveness.