DOCKANALYZER: AN OPEN TOOL FOR ANALYZING THE RESULTS OF MOLECULAR DOCKING

Abstract

A program with the DockAnalyzer graphical interface has been developed to automate the analysis of molecular docking results in CIF format. The need for such a tool is caused by the exponential growth of data during virtual screening, when manual processing of a large number of files becomes impossible, and existing solutions require complex configuration or transfer of confidential structures to external servers. The aim of the work is to create a lightweight desktop application for local analysis and visualization of intermolecular interactions in protein-ligand complexes. The program is implemented in Python using the GEMMI, NumPy, and Tkinter libraries. The architecture includes modules for parsing CIF files, geometric classification of contacts (hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions, flares) and an interactive table with color coding of bond types. Additionally, integration with the P2Rank tool for predicting ligand-binding pockets is implemented, which allows comparing calculated contacts with predicted binding regions. Testing on the reference complex of HIV-1 protease with an inhibitor confirmed the correctness of the operation: 470 contacts were automatically identified, the distribution by type of interactions and the remnants of the binding site coincided with those annotated in the PDB. A comparative analysis with analogues (PLIP, Arpeggio, BINANA 2) showed that the advantages of DockAnalyzer are visual visualization of data directly in the contact table, the absence of dependencies on external servers, and confidentiality of processing due to local startup. The program exports the results to TXT and CSV formats for further statistical processing. The modular architecture makes expanded functionality possible, including support for new file formats and machine learning methods for predicting binding pockets.