There are roughly 2500 protein structures for tuberculosis in the PDB and perhaps thousands of ligand candidates published. All these pieces of information are available with a few keyboard strokes and a click of the mouse. Along with existing technologies, it is now possible to analyze TB enzymes and lead candidates at the atomic level in order to understand their function and how to regulate them. While computational methods have been widely used in drug discovery nowadays due to their successful applications
[124][125][126], it is still important to remember that these tools are like any other experimental approaches—prone to limitations dependent on the system and other various parameters being studied
[127][128][129].
VS has been known to successfully screen millions of compounds to identify potential inhibitors for a given target
[124][126]. This lends efficiency to cost, time, and efforts used in drug discovery projects as only the most promising compounds are brought forward for more rigorous experimental testing and drug development. However, optimization and validation of these methods are far from perfect and are highly dependent on the protein system and compound classes used, leading to possible bias in the computational model. Thus, it is challenging to determine which method has the advantage over another; many benchmark studies have been published regarding this matter
[130][131]. Other major limitations include difficulties in incorporating protein flexibility and solvent effects due to the computational burden attached to these factors
[31]. Fortunately, available technologies seem to be catching up as enhance sampling methods, HPC, and MD platforms are now routinely applied in drug discovery projects and are known to calculate up to milliseconds of simulations for various protein targets
[132][133][134]. In terms of ligand-based drug design, its main advantage is its simplicity and efficiency. Indeed, LBDD has a long history and numerous candidates have already been discovered even with the lack of protein structural information
[135][136][137]. Nonetheless, several factors should be considered when applying ligand-based tools. Firstly, ligand alignments are based on the lowest conformation energy, which is often different from the bioactive conformation
[138][139], as well as on the assumption that ligands bind in the same site and display the same conformation. Secondly, compounds should be evaluated by the same group (preferred) or tested using the same assay with the same parameters to be considered comparable
[140]. Thirdly, the basic premise of ‘similar structures display similar activities’ are contradicted by the existence of activity cliffs
[141][142][143], and so care should be taken when selecting potential candidates from a pool of virtual hits. Finally, it is also a challenge to incorporate the effects of solvation and protein flexibility due to the nature of the analysis.