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2685: Revisiting CCHFV Round 8

Closed since 4 months ago

Intermediate Overall Small Molecule Design

Summary


Created
November 06, 2025
Expires
Max points
100
Description

The Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a life-threatening zoonotic disease caused by a tick-borne virus. Recent research has revealed the significant role of the viral-encoded Ovarian Tumor (OTU) deubiquitinase in the CCHFV replication process. Based on the most promising compounds, this puzzle will focus on getting an inhibitor for this protein. As the CCHFV-OTU protease interacts with another protein (ubiquitin), the interaction surface is quite large and superficial, making it a challenging binding pocket. For this round we will be focusing on the lower binding pocket. For more details check out theĀ Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever blog post.

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Comments


Sciren Staff Lv 1

Objectives

Maximum bonus: +7750

Torsion Quality (max +1000)
Keeps bond rotations in a good range. Using Wiggle or Tweak Ligand can fix bad torsions. (Show highlights torsions to be rotated.)

Number of Rotatable Bonds (max +1000)
Intended to keep the ligand from getting too big and floppy. You can reduce rotatable bonds by deleting groups or forming rings. (Show highlights rotatable bonds.)

Ligand TPSA (max +1000)
Topological Polar Surface Area - Keeps the polar surface area (including buried polar surface) low. To improve, try removing oxygens and nitrogens. (Show highlights atoms contributing to higher TPSA.)

Ligand cLogP (max +1000)
A measure of polarity - Keeps the molecule from getting too hydrophobic. To improve, try adding polar oxygens and nitrogens. (Show highlights atoms contributing to higher cLogP.)

Bad Groups (max +1000)
Gives a bonus for avoiding groups that interfere with assays, which are far from the compounds in the library, or which otherwise have issues. (Show highlights groups at issue.)

Good Groups (max +1000)
Gives a bonus if the molecule contains either a sulfonate or a tetrazole group. A previous study has shown that molecules containing one of these groups exhibit better affinities, due to their binding to the protein, as illustrated in the following pictures.

Sulfonate Tetrazole

Molecular Weight (max +1000)
Keeps the ligand within a reasonable size limit.

Synthetic Accessibility (max +750)
Keeps the ligand from going too far from the compounds in the library. (Show highlights parts of the molecule at issue.)

LociOiling Lv 1

Yes, it seems like a sulfonate can earn the "good groups" bonus, but also causes a "bad groups" deduction.

The comments from Revisiting CCHFV Round 6 show a sulfonate and a tetrazole and discuss the problems with the sulfonate.

For last week's round 7, puzzle comments mentioned "good groups", but the objective wasn't included in the actual puzzle.