Predictive cartography of metal binders using generative topographic mapping

Generative topographic mapping (GTM) approach is used to visualize the chemical space of organic molecules (L) with respect to binding a wide range of 41 different metal cations (M) and also to build predictive models for stability constants (logK) of 1:1 (M:L) complexes using “density maps,” “activity landscapes,” and “selectivity landscapes” techniques. A two-dimensional map describing the entire set of 2962 metal binders reveals the selectivity and promiscuity zones with respect to individual metals or groups of metals with similar chemical properties (lanthanides, transition metals, etc). The GTM-based global (for entire set) and local (for selected subsets) models demonstrate a good predictive performance in the cross-validation procedure. It is also shown that the data likelihood could be used as a definition of the applicability domain of GTM-based models. Thus, the GTM approach represents an efficient tool for the predictive cartography of metal binders, which can both visualize their chemical space and predict the affinity profile of metals for new ligands.