Expanding the drug discovery space with predicted metabolite-target interactions

Commun Biol. 2021 Mar 5;4(1):288. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-01822-x.

Abstract

Metabolites produced in the human gut are known modulators of host immunity. However, large-scale identification of metabolite-host receptor interactions remains a daunting challenge. Here, we employed computational approaches to identify 983 potential metabolite-target interactions using the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) cohort dataset of the Human Microbiome Project 2 (HMP2). Using a consensus of multiple machine learning methods, we ranked metabolites based on importance to IBD, followed by virtual ligand-based screening to identify possible human targets and adding evidence from compound assay, differential gene expression, pathway enrichment, and genome-wide association studies. We confirmed known metabolite-target pairs such as nicotinic acid-GPR109a or linoleoyl ethanolamide-GPR119 and inferred interactions of interest including oleanolic acid-GABRG2 and alpha-CEHC-THRB. Eleven metabolites were tested for bioactivity in vitro using human primary cell-types. By expanding the universe of possible microbial metabolite-host protein interactions, we provide multiple drug targets for potential immune-therapies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anti-Inflammatory Agents / pharmacology*
  • Bacteria / immunology
  • Bacteria / metabolism*
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Data Mining
  • Databases, Factual
  • Drug Discovery*
  • Gastrointestinal Agents / pharmacology*
  • Gastrointestinal Microbiome*
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions
  • Humans
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / drug therapy*
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / immunology
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / metabolism
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / microbiology
  • Ligands
  • Machine Learning*
  • Metabolome
  • Metabolomics
  • Molecular Targeted Therapy
  • Protein Interaction Maps*
  • Signal Transduction
  • Transcriptome

Substances

  • Anti-Inflammatory Agents
  • Gastrointestinal Agents
  • Ligands