%0 Journal Article %T Neural Network–Based Search for COX-2 Active Ligands from Coxib-like and Similar Compounds %A Liza Tybaco Billones %A Alex Cerbito Gonzaga %J Pharmacophore %@ 2229-5402 %D 2023 %V 14 %N 3 %R 10.51847/EzWhoceEEc %P 55-64 %X The development of novel non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) free of serious side effects remains an attractive area of research. The availability of hundreds of compounds with known inhibitory activity against COX-2, the intended enzyme target of most NSAIDs, provides an excellent opportunity to explore various quantitative structure-activity relationship models and apply them in the binary classification of compounds. In this work, an artificial neural network or neural net (NN) model was constructed on a dataset consisting of 1380 compounds and 184 attributes, i.e., molecular descriptors. A feedforward NN consisting of 63 input nodes, 1 hidden layer with 33 nodes, and trained on 80% of the dataset by a backpropagation algorithm, has learned after 200 training cycles to classify compounds as active or inactive against COX-2. It has excellent predictive performance (accuracy = 93.5%, AUC = 0.97) on the 20% test set. The neural net classified 875 newly designed variants of COX-2 selective inhibitors and 163 structurally related compounds as active against the COX-2 target. The top hits have superior (or at least comparable) binding affinities compared to the control and possess the desirable properties of an oral drug. %U https://pharmacophorejournal.com/article/neural-networkndashbased-search-for-cox-2-active-ligands-from-coxib-like-and-similar-compounds-allyrh6vm93jebg