Computational tools for polypharmacology and repurposing

Abstract

Most drugs act on a multitude of targets rather than on one single target. Polypharmacology, an upcoming branch of pharmaceutical science, deals with the recognition of these off-target activities of small chemical compounds. Due to the high amount of data to be processed, application of computational methods is indispensable in this area. This review summarizes the most important in silico approaches for polypharmacology. The described methods comprise network pharmacology, machine learning techniques and chemogenomic approaches. The use of these methods for drug repurposing as a branch of drug discovery and development is discussed. Furthermore, a broad range of prospective applications is summarized to give the reader an overview of possibilities and limitations of the described techniques.