Numerous essential biological processes, including cancer, neurological diseases, muscle problems, and bacterial infections, are associated with RNA molecules, as are numerous human ailments. The identification of new therapeutic drugs and even the treatment of pathologies associated with “undruggable” protein targets can result from altering the mode of action of disease-implicated RNA molecules. By using tiny compounds to directly target RNA, this modulation can be accomplished. Only a few RNA-targeting small compounds are being employed in medicine. The absence of a thorough knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying RNA-small molecule (RNA-SM) recognition is one of the major challenges that has prevented the development of a rational drug design protocol to target RNA with small molecules.
In this article, the authors have introduced “Harnessing RIBOnucleic acid—Small molecule Structures (HARIBOSS)”, a curated collection of RNA-SM structures discovered by X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and cryo-electron microscopy. HARIBOSS makes it easier to investigate drugs that are known to bind RNA, analyse the properties of ligands and pockets, and ultimately build in silico methods to find small molecules that target RNA.
The source code is available at http://hariboss.pasteur.cloud
Reference:
Panei F.P. et. al. (2022) HARIBOSS: a curated database of RNA-small molecules structures to aid rational drug design. Bioinformatics 38 (17): 4185-4193.