AiKPro: deep learning model for kinome-wide bioactivity profiling using structure-based sequence alignments and molecular 3D conformer ensemble descriptors

The discovery of selective and potent kinase inhibitors is crucial for the treatment of various diseases, but the process is challenging due to the high structural similarity among kinases. Efficient kinome-wide bioactivity profiling is essential for understanding kinase function and identifying selective inhibitors. In this study, we propose AiKPro, a deep learning model that combines structure-validated multiple sequence alignments and molecular 3D conformer ensemble descriptors to predict kinase-ligand binding affinities. Our deep learning model uses an attention-based mechanism to capture complex patterns in the interactions between the kinase and the ligand. To assess the performance of AiKPro, we evaluated the impact of descriptors, the predictability for untrained kinases and compounds, and kinase activity profiling based on odd ratios. Our model, AiKPro, shows good Pearson’s correlation coefficients of 0.88 and 0.87 for the test set and for the untrained sets of compounds, respectively, which also shows the robustness of the model. AiKPro shows good kinase-activity profiles across the kinome, potentially facilitating the discovery of novel interactions and selective inhibitors. Our approach holds potential implications for the discovery of novel, selective kinase inhibitors and guiding rational drug design.