Development of QSAR models to predict and interpret the biological activity of artemisinin analogues

This work presents the development of Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) models to predict the biological activity of 179 artemisinin analogues. The structures of the molecules are represented by chemical descriptors that encode topological, geometric, and electronic structure features. Both linear (multiple linear regression) and nonlinear (computational neural network) models are developed to link the structures to their reported biological activity. The best linear model was subjected to a PLS analysis to provide model interpretability. While the best linear model does not perform as well as the nonlinear model in terms of predictive ability, the application of PLS analysis allows for a sound physical interpretation of the structure-activity trend captured by the model. On the other hand, the best nonlinear model is superior in terms of pure predictive ability, having a training error of 0.47 log RA units (R-2 = 0.96) and a prediction error of 0.76 log RA units (R-2 = 0.88).