| Abstract
| - The human ether-a-go-go-related gene (HERG) protein forms the ion channel responsible for the rapidlyacting delayed rectifier potassium current, IKr, and its blockade is a significant contributor to prolongationof the QT interval. Using descriptors which have clear physicochemical meanings and are familiar to medicinalchemists, we have carried out 2D-quantitative structure−activity relationship (2D-QSAR) studies on 104HERG channel blockers with diverse structures collected from the literature, and we have formulatedinterpretable models to guide chemical-modification studies and virtual screening. Statistically significantdescriptors were selected by a genetic algorithm, and the final model included the octanol/water partitioncoefficient, topological polar surface area, diameter, summed surface area of atoms with partial chargesfrom −0.25 to −0.20, and an indicator variable representing the experimental conditions. The statisticswere r = 0.839, r2 = 0.704, q2 = 0.671, s = 0.763, and F = 46.6. The correspondence of the moleculardeterminants derived from the 2D-QSAR models with the 3D structural characteristics of the putative bindingsite in a homology-modeled HERG channel is also discussed.
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