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2688: Revisiting CCHFV Round 9

Closed since 4 months ago

Intermediate Overall Small Molecule Design

Summary


Created
November 14, 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.

Note: For this puzzle, we have removed the sulfonate bonus found in previous iterations and instead award points only for the tetrazoles, as they have shown slightly higher binding affinities in testing.

Top groups


  1. Avatar for Crosby Bio 222 F20 11. Crosby Bio 222 F20 1 pt. 22,603
  2. Avatar for Void Crushers 12. Void Crushers 1 pt. 22,603
  3. Avatar for Coastal Biochemistry 13. Coastal Biochemistry 1 pt. 22,579

  1. Avatar for ucad
    1. ucad Lv 1
    100 pts. 26,076
  2. Avatar for Bletchley Park 2. Bletchley Park Lv 1 93 pts. 25,658
  3. Avatar for Bruno Kestemont 3. Bruno Kestemont Lv 1 87 pts. 25,261
  4. Avatar for alcor29 4. alcor29 Lv 1 81 pts. 25,220
  5. Avatar for BootsMcGraw 5. BootsMcGraw Lv 1 75 pts. 24,948
  6. Avatar for gmn 6. gmn Lv 1 69 pts. 24,891
  7. Avatar for prkfour 7. prkfour Lv 1 64 pts. 24,811
  8. Avatar for arotomic 8. arotomic Lv 1 59 pts. 24,701
  9. Avatar for JuliaBCollet 9. JuliaBCollet Lv 1 55 pts. 24,438
  10. Avatar for carxo 10. carxo Lv 1 50 pts. 24,319

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 a tetrazole group. A previous study has shown that molecules containing this group exhibit better affinities, due to their binding to the protein, as illustrated in the following pictures.

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.)