Use of the Kohonen neural network for rapid screening of ex vivo anti-HIV activity of styrylquinolines.

Using the Kohonen neural network, the electrostatic potentials on the molecular surfaces of 14 styrylquinoline derivatives were drawn as comparative two-dimensional maps and compared with their known human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 replication blocking potency in cells. A feature of the potential map was discovered to be related with the HIV-1 blocking activity and was used to unmask the activity of further five analogues, previously described but whose cytotoxicity precluded an estimation of their activity, and to predict the activity of 10 new compounds while the experimental data were unknown. The measurements performed later turned out to agree with the predictions.