In molecular conformation generation, docking, and de-novo molecular generation the generated molecules conformation should have a reasonable geometry including standard bond lengths and angles and no steric clash.
Bond lengths | |
Bottom left carbon-oxygen bond too short |
Bond angles | |
Bond angles off and atoms clashing |
Steric clash | |
Molecule intertwined and atoms clashing |
High energy conformation | |
Twisted rings energetically unfavorable |
Aromatic rings not flat | |
Conjugated pi bond systems should be flat |
In docking the molecular identity should be preserved including stereochemistry.
Tetrahedral stereochemistry changed | |
Top right oxygen facing the wrong way |
Double bond stereochemistry changed | |
Right most double bond should be cis |
In de-novo molecular generator or docking the generated molecule should be placed with in a receptor's binding pocket without any steric clash.
Volume overlap | |
Ligand and receptor clash |
For more detailed information about the tests and for a study using PoseBusters to compare docking methods, refer to our preprint:
@online{buttenschoen2023posebusters,
title = {{{PoseBusters}}: {{AI-based}} Docking Methods Fail to Generate Physically Valid Poses or Generalise to Novel Sequences},
shorttitle = {{{PoseBusters}}},
author = {Buttenschoen, Martin and Morris, Garrett M. and Deane, Charlotte M.},
date = {2023-08-10},
eprint = {2308.05777},
eprinttype = {arxiv}
}