Hydroxyethylamine derivatives as HIV-1 protease inhibitors: a predictive QSAR modelling study based on Monte Carlo optimization.

Application of HIV-1 protease inhibitors (as an anti-HIV regimen) may serve as an attractive strategy for anti-HIV drug development. Several investigations suggest that there is a crucial need to develop a novel protease inhibitor with higher potency and reduced toxicity. Monte Carlo optimized QSAR study was performed on 200 hydroxyethylamine derivatives with antiprotease activity. Twenty-one QSAR models with good statistical qualities were developed from three different splits with various combinations of SMILES and GRAPH based descriptors. The best models from different splits were selected on the basis of statistically validated characteristics of the test set and have the following statistical parameters: r2 = 0.806, Q2 = 0.788 (split 1); r2 = 0.842, Q2 = 0.826 (split 2); r2 = 0.774, Q2 = 0.755 (split 3). The structural attributes obtained from the best models were analysed to understand the structural requirements of the selected series for HIV-1 protease inhibitory activity. On the basis of obtained structural attributes, 11 new compounds were designed, out of which five compounds were found to have better activity than the best active compound in the series.