Analyzing compound activity records and promiscuity degrees in light of publication statistics

Data selection and curation

From the latest version of ChEMBL^15,16 (release 21), compounds were assembled for which direct interactions (i.e. assay relationship type “D”) with single human protein targets at the highest confidence level (assay confidence score “9”) and defined potency measurements (K_i and/or IC₅₀ values) were reported. All approximate measurements (e.g. “>”, “<”, or “~”) were disregarded. These compounds and their activity records were designated “set 1” and represented a high-confidence data set according to previously established confidence criteria¹⁷. For comparison, a “set 2” was collected consisting of compounds with defined potency values (excluding approximate measurements) for single human protein targets. Hence, in this case, no assay type and confidence criteria were applied. In both cases, only activity measurements were considered that were reported in original publications and all of these publication records were collected.

Data organization

Compound data sets 1 and 2 were further organized and analyzed on the basis of:

Publications. Compounds and activity data were assigned to individual publications and grouped by publications using compounds, assays, and targets as criteria.

Activity records. All individual compound-target combinations were determined to generate “activity records”. A compound might be tested against the same target in different assays reported in a single or multiple publications. In addition, potency values might vary across different assays and publications or might be referenced in other publications. Therefore, for each activity record representing a unique compound-target combination, all corresponding publications and potency values were collected and added to the record.

Compounds. Publications and activity data were also grouped by compounds, leading to the definition of four subsets including compounds active against

(A) a single target reported in a single publication;

(B) a single target reported in more than five publications;

(C) more than five targets reported in a single publication;

(D) more than five targets reported in more than five publications.

The selection of cut offs, i.e. one and five targets, was based on the previous observations¹⁰ that the majority of bioactive compounds were active against a single target and only approximately 1% of the compounds interacted with more than five targets. Therefore, a promiscuity degree of five (targets) would refer to highly promiscuous compounds. The same cut offs were applied to the number of associated publications.

Promiscuity

For sets 1 and 2, the degree of promiscuity of a compound was defined as the number of targets it was reported to be active against². Promiscuity degrees were determined and analyzed in light of publication statistics.

Activity data from the medicinal chemistry literature

Given our data selection and curation criteria described above, set 1 contained 168,208 unique compounds that were tested in 31,578 assays against 1566 human targets, as reported in Table 1. These activity data were reported in 11,213 publications from 70 different medicinal chemistry journals. Table 2 lists the top-ranked journals where most of these publications appeared. These eight journals published ~97% of the qualifying papers. In addition, a total of 318,570 potency measurements were available and associated with 257,138 unique activity records, which were defined as individual compound-target entries containing all associated publications and qualifying potency measurements. In addition, set 2 comprised 293,736 compounds yielding 621,704 potency measurements against 2170 human targets (Table 1), which were reported in 19,528 publications from 90 journals (Table 1 and Table 2). A total of 471,442 unique activity records were obtained.

Assays, targets and compounds in original publications

Table 1 also reports the distribution of assays and targets over source publications. Of the nearly 11,000 papers associated with set 1, 4449 (~40%) and 1483 (~13%) reported activity data derived from a single assay and multiple assays for an individual target, respectively. The remaining ~47% of the publications reported activity from multiple assays for two or more targets. Similar observations were made for set 2 (Table 1). Publications were further organized with respect to increasing numbers of assays, targets, and active compounds (Figure 1). The majority of publications of sets 1 and 2 reported one or two assays for one or two targets, while ~9% (set 1) and ~14% (set 2) of the papers contained results for more than five assays. In addition, ~5% (set 1) and ~6% (set 2) of the publications reported activity data for more than five targets. On average, a set 1 and set 2 publication reported 2.8 and 3.4 assays for 2.2 and 2.4 targets and 16.7 and 17.3 active compounds, respectively (Figure 1). Hence, assay, compound, and target statistics were very similar for both sets.

Figure 1. Distribution of assays, targets, and compounds in original publications.

Histograms monitor the percentages of publications reporting increasing numbers of assays, targets, and compounds for (a) set 1 and (b) set 2, respectively. In addition, the mean and median values are provided.

Activity records from source publications

From set 1 and set 2 publications, a total of 257,138 and 471,442 unique activity records were extracted, respectively. These activity records were classified according to the number of publications from which they originated and the number of different potency values that were reported for each compound-target combination (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Classification of activity records.

Activity records from (a) set 1 and (b) set 2 are classified using a decision tree structure.

Figure 2a shows that ~95% (244,775) of the set 1 activity records originated from a single publication. Most of these activity records (218,508) were associated with a single potency value. In addition, for 26,267 records, two or more potency values were available that mostly differed. Varying potency values typically resulted from different experiments. Of the 12,363 activity records originating from two or more publications, 7535 had varying potency values, whereas 4828 were associated with multiple instances of the same value, which was likely referenced from a previous publication. A similar distribution of activity records was observed for set 2 (Figure 2b). Taken together, the results revealed that more than 90% of all activity records resulted from a single publication most of which appeared between 2006 and 2014.

Activity records covering many publications

Small subsets of 328 (set 1) and 632 (set 2) activity records originated from more than 10 publications. Figure 3a (set 1) and Figure 3b (set 2) report the relationships between the number of publications and distinct potency values associated with these records. Up to 20 different potency values were frequently observed, which often spanned an unexpectedly large potency range of two or more orders of magnitude, as shown Figure 3c (set 1) and Figure 3d (set 2). Figure 4 shows exemplary compounds from such activity records, which further illustrate these findings. For example, the compound at the top was involved in two activity records with isoforms of carbonic anhydrase, a “classical” target, which were associated with 129 and 209 publications, respectively, appearing over a period of 12 years. In both instances, the range of 60 or 61 distinct potency values spanned nearly four orders of magnitude, revealing very large variations of experimental assessments.

Figure 3. Activity records covering many publications.

For (a) 328 (set 1) and (b) 632 (set 2) activity records (compound-target combinations) originating from more than 10 publications, the number of publications is plotted vs. the number of different potency values that were reported. In addition, in (c) (set 1) and (d) (set 2), the percentages of activity records covering increasing logarithmic potency ranges are given, e.g. “> 3” refers to a potency range of more than three orders of magnitude.

Figure 4. Extensively tested compounds.

Shown are four compounds from set 1, which were tested against a given target in many publications and for which the largest numbers of distinct potency values were reported. Publication and potency value statistics are provided. CHEMBLID gives the compound identifier in ChEMBL. In addition, if available, compound or drug names are given in parentheses.

Promiscuity degrees and publication frequency

For each of 168,208 and 293,736 unique compounds from sets 1 and 2, the degree of promiscuity was determined, as reported in Table 3, revealing comparable distributions over degree intervals. Consistent with previous findings, the majority of bioactive compounds were found to interact with a single target¹⁰. The mean degree of promiscuity was 1.5 for set 1 and 1.6 for set 2 and the median degree was 1.0 in both cases, also consistent with earlier findings¹⁰. However, the low degree of promiscuity detected for set 2 was rather surprising because in this case, assay type and confidence criteria were not applied. The only requirement for set 2 compounds was the availability of clearly specified potency values for human protein targets, which resulted in promiscuity degrees very similar to set 1 having higher data confidence. These findings indicated that the requirement of explicit potency values alone limited the number of target annotations, although potency values for the same target often differed in their magnitude. Table 4 reports the publication frequency of all compounds in sets 1 and 2. Consistent with the results obtained for activity records, most of the compounds were only found in one publication, regardless of whether one or more targets were investigated.

Promiscuity on the basis of source publications

Promiscuity was also assessed by directly focusing on source publications instead of activity records. The results are summarized in Figure 5. For both set 1 (Figure 5a) and set 2 (Figure 5b), target annotations of compounds across all promiscuity degrees mostly originated from a single publication, although multiple publications also contributed in many instances. There was no detectable correlation between promiscuity degrees and the number of source publications. Four subsets of compounds (A–D) were defined covering different ranges of promiscuity degrees and source publications. In set 1 (Figure 5a), 113,475 (67.5%; subset A) and 47 (0.03%; subset B) compounds with a promiscuity degree of 1 originated from a single and more than five publications, respectively. In addition, 1049 (0.6%; subset C) and 218 (0.1%; subset D) compounds with a promiscuity degree >5 originated from a single and more than five publications, respectively. Thus, activity data characterizing most of the highly promiscuous compounds were also reported in a single publication. Equivalent observations were made for compounds in set 2 (Figure 5b). The nine most promiscuous compounds from set 1 are shown in Figure 6. These compounds were annotated with 30 to 71 targets belonging to three to 26 families reported in one to more than 50 publications. Overall more than 86% of promiscuous compounds originated from single publications and there was no relationship between the degree of promiscuity and increasing numbers of source publications. Hence, current degrees of compound promiscuity could not be attributed to publication statistics and cumulative effects.

Figure 5. Compound promiscuity vs. publication frequency.

In (a) (set 1) and (b) (set 2), compounds with increasing numbers of targets (top to bottom) reported in increasing numbers of publications (left to right) are given in a matrix format. In addition, four compound subsets (A–D) are defined.

Figure 6. Highly promiscuous compounds.

Shown are nine compounds displaying the largest degrees of promiscuity in set 1. Publication statistics are provided. In addition, if available, compound or drug names are given in parentheses.