In silico screening of drug databases for TSE inhibitors.

Today, thousands of different chemical compounds are used as drugs for a wealth of different indications. Here, we demonstrate the use of a novel conformational drug database for the search of compounds with a positive influence on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) by using two- and three-dimensional structural similarity to compounds with known effect. Both methods are combined to deduce a list of 16 candidate drugs. The proposal of a small number of putative inhibitors out of about 2300 approved essential drugs allows testing by expensive or time-consuming methods with the advantage that all agents are well known and suitable for use in humans.