A comprehensive analysis of the influence of drug binding kinetics on drug action at molecular and systems levels

Abstract

Binding kinetics is closely related to the efficacy of drugs. Several aspects of binding kinetics, such as long residence or frequent dissociation, have been proposed to affect drug properties such as efficacy, selectivity, and multi-target potency. However, a comprehensive and balanced study of binding kinetics in various scenarios is still needed. We performed a comprehensive computational analysis of the role of drug binding kinetics in various situations such as enzyme inhibition, receptor binding, multi-target drug targeting, signal transduction pathways, and metabolic networks. Molecular studies of enzyme inhibition, receptor binding, and multi-target drugs have shown that at constant binding affinity, fast associating drugs show better enzyme inhibitory effects, earlier and higher receptor occupancy peaks, and better multi-target performances, while slow dissociating drugs show prolonged receptor occupancy, as suggested by others. Different situations exemplify slightly different kinetic–efficacy relationships, and each must be considered separately. At the systems level, binding kinetics can not only change the overall effect of drugs, but can also affect signaling dynamics. For example, in the tumor necrosis factor α-induced nuclear factor-κB pathway, inhibitor addition can delay the onset of oscillations and decrease their frequencies, with these changes varying with the binding kinetics of the inhibitor. The effects of drug binding kinetics also depend on network topology and where the target is located in the network. For successful drug discovery, both molecular binding kinetics and systems level requirements need to be considered.