Protein-ligand docking.

Ligand-docking is an established computational technique universally applied in structure-based drug design. Since the first attempts carried out in the early '80s to predict the three-dimensional conformation of a protein-ligand bound complex, this methodology has evolved constantly and it is presently implemented in many different ways. The present study aims at explaining the standard protein-ligand docking protocol, together with its main advantages and drawbacks. Milestone reports and future directions are reported and discussed as well.