Pharmacophore modeling and three dimensional database searching for drug design using catalyst: recent advances.

Perceiving a pharmacophore is the first essential step towards understanding the interaction between a receptor and a ligand. Once a pharmacophore is established, a beneficial use of it is 3D database searching to retrieve novel compounds that would match the pharmacophore. As the 3D searching technology has evolved over the years, it has been effectively used for lead optimization, combinatorial library focusing, as well as virtual high-throughput screening. This paper is an update to the original paper published in this journal earlier: Kurogi, Y, and Guner, O. F. "Pharmacophore Modeling and Three-Dimensional Database Searching for Drug Design Using Catalyst," in Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2001, 8(9), 1035-1055.