The Chemical and Temporal Landscape of KDM1A (LSD1) Bioactivity Space: A Data-Driven Cheminformatic Analysis of Public ChEMBL Data on Potency, Scaffold Diversity and Physicochemical Properties

Authors

  • Tamilarasi G Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Author
  • Srimathi D Student, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Author
  • Gayathri S Assistant professor, GRT Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, GRT Mahalakshmi Nagar Chennai-Tirupathi Highway, Tiruttani, India. Author
  • Priya M Student, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Author
  • Archana A Student, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Author
  • Ajin T S Student, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Author
  • Hameedhash R Student, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63282/3050-9262.IJAIDSML-V7I4P101

Keywords:

KDM1A/LSD1, Chemical Space, Scaffold Diversity, ChEMBL, Cheminformatics, Data Science

Abstract

Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1A (KDM1A, also known as LSD1) is a validated epigenetic anticancer target, yet the collective chemical space of its reported bioactive compounds is seldom mapped as a whole. This study presents a purely descriptive cheminformatic profile of that space from the public ChEMBL database. Of 3,946 compounds with a defined pChEMBL value for the human target CHEMBL6136, the 3,435 (87.1 percent) reporting IC50 as their only endpoint form the primary set. Structures are processed with RDKit and statistics with SciPy and pandas; no predictive modelling, docking, molecular dynamics, ADMET prediction or quantum-chemical calculation is performed. Measured potency spans pChEMBL 3.36 to 10.30 with a median of 6.75, comprising 2,546 high-potency, 523 moderate and 366 low-potency compounds. The set maps to 1,658 Bemis-Murcko scaffolds and 948 generic frameworks, 56 percent of which are singletons; 80 and 339 frameworks cover 50 and 80 percent of compounds (Shannon entropy 8.72 of 9.89 bits; Gini coefficient 0.60). Median potency differs significantly among the most frequent frameworks (Kruskal-Wallis test, p below 0.001). Records concentrate in 2011 to 2025 and peak in 2022 and annual median potency shows a modest but significant upward trend (Spearman correlation 0.66, p value 0.008). Median molecular weight is 419 Da, calculated logP 3.8 and topological polar surface area 72 square angstroms; 30 peptidic or macrocyclic outliers exceed 1,000 Da and 9.9 percent of compounds carry a PAINS alert. This transparent, reproducible map offers a model-free reference for scaffold selection and gap analysis in KDM1A drug discovery.

References

[1] Y. Shi, F. Lan, C. Matson, P. Mulligan, J. R. Whetstine, P. A. Cole, R. A. Casero and Y. Shi, “Histone demethylation mediated by the nuclear amine oxidase homolog LSD1,” Cell, vol. 119, no. 7, pp. 941–953, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2004.12.012

[2] F. Forneris, C. Binda, E. Battaglioli and A. Mattevi, “LSD1: oxidative chemistry for multifaceted functions in chromatin regulation,” Trends Biochem. Sci., vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 181–189, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibs.2008.01.003

[3] W. J. Harris et al., “The histone demethylase KDM1A sustains the oncogenic potential of MLL-AF9 leukemia stem cells,” Cancer Cell, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 473–487, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccr.2012.03.014

[4] H. P. Mohammad et al., “A DNA hypomethylation signature predicts antitumor activity of LSD1 inhibitors in SCLC,” Cancer Cell, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 57–69, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2015.06.002

[5] H. Sung, J. Ferlay, R. L. Siegel, M. Laversanne, I. Soerjomataram, A. Jemal and F. Bray, “Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries,” CA Cancer J. Clin., vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 209–249, 2021. https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21660

[6] M. A. Dawson and T. Kouzarides, “Cancer epigenetics: from mechanism to therapy,” Cell, vol. 150, no. 1, pp. 12–27, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2012.06.013

[7] M. Yang, J. C. Culhane, L. M. Szewczuk, C. B. Gocke, C. A. Brautigam, D. R. Tomchick, M. Machius, P. A. Cole and H. Yu, “Structural basis of histone demethylation by LSD1 revealed by suicide inactivation,” Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol., vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 535–539, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb1255

[8] D. M. Z. Schmidt and D. G. McCafferty, “trans-2-Phenylcyclopropylamine is a mechanism-based inactivator of the histone demethylase LSD1,” Biochemistry, vol. 46, no. 14, pp. 4408–4416, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1021/bi0618621

[9] T. Maes et al., “ORY-1001, a potent and selective covalent KDM1A inhibitor, for the treatment of acute leukemia,” Cancer Cell, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 495–511.e12, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2018.02.002

[10] P. Vianello et al., “Thieno[3,2-b]pyrrole-5-carboxamides as new reversible inhibitors of histone lysine demethylase KDM1A/LSD1. Part 2,” J. Med. Chem., vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 1693–1715, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b01019

[11] Y. Fang, G. Liao and B. Yu, “LSD1/KDM1A inhibitors in clinical trials: advances and prospects,” J. Hematol. Oncol., vol. 12, no. 1, Art. no. 129, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13045-019-0811-9

[12] Y. Song, H. Zhang, X. Yang, Y. Shi and B. Yu, “Annual review of lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1/KDM1A) inhibitors in 2021,” Eur. J. Med. Chem., vol. 228, Art. no. 114042, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmech.2021.114042

[13] C. Zhang, Z. Wang, Y. Shi, B. Yu and Y. Song, “Recent advances of LSD1/KDM1A inhibitors for disease therapy,” Bioorg. Chem., vol. 134, Art. no. 106443, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioorg.2023.106443

[14] B. Zdrazil et al., “The ChEMBL Database in 2023: a drug discovery platform spanning multiple bioactivity data types and time periods,” Nucleic Acids Res., vol. 52, no. D1, pp. D1180–D1192, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad1004

[15] A. Gaulton et al., “ChEMBL: a large-scale bioactivity database for drug discovery,” Nucleic Acids Res., vol. 40, no. D1, pp. D1100–D1107, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkr777

[16] G. W. Bemis and M. A. Murcko, “The properties of known drugs. 1. Molecular frameworks,” J. Med. Chem., vol. 39, no. 15, pp. 2887–2893, 1996 https://doi.org/10.1021/jm9602928

[17] A. H. Lipkus, Q. Yuan, K. A. Lucas, S. A. Funk, W. F. Bartelt III, R. J. Schenck and A. J. Trippe, “Structural diversity of organic chemistry. A scaffold analysis of the CAS Registry,” J. Org. Chem., vol. 73, no. 12, pp. 4443–4451, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1021/jo8001276

[18] D. Rogers and M. Hahn, “Extended-connectivity fingerprints,” J. Chem. Inf. Model., vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 742–754, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1021/ci100050t

[19] J. B. Baell and G. A. Holloway, “New substructure filters for removal of pan assay interference compounds (PAINS) from screening libraries and for their exclusion in bioassays,” J. Med. Chem., vol. 53, no. 7, pp. 2719–2740, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1021/jm901137j

[20] G. Landrum, “RDKit: Open-source cheminformatics,” [Online]. Available: https://www.rdkit.org.

[21] W. McKinney, “Data structures for statistical computing in Python,” in Proc. 9th Python in Science Conf., pp. 56–61, 2010. https://doi.org/10.25080/Majora-92bf1922-00a

[22] C. R. Harris et al., “Array programming with NumPy,” Nature, vol. 585, no. 7825, pp. 357–362, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2

[23] P. Virtanen et al., “SciPy 1.0: fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python,” Nat. Methods, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 261–272, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-019-0686-2

[24] J. D. Hunter, “Matplotlib: a 2D graphics environment,” Comput. Sci. Eng., vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 90–95, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCSE.2007.55

Downloads

Published

2026-10-02

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

G, T., D, S., S, G., M, P., A, A., T S, A., & R, H. (2026). The Chemical and Temporal Landscape of KDM1A (LSD1) Bioactivity Space: A Data-Driven Cheminformatic Analysis of Public ChEMBL Data on Potency, Scaffold Diversity and Physicochemical Properties. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Machine Learning, 7(4), 01-09. https://doi.org/10.63282/3050-9262.IJAIDSML-V7I4P101