SmartGraph: A network pharmacology investigation platform

Abstract

Motivation: Drug discovery investigations need to incorporate network pharmacology concepts while navigating the complex landscape of drug-target and target-target interactions. This task requires solutions that integrate high-quality biomedical data, combined with analytic and predictive workflows as well as efficient visualization. SmartGraph is an innovative platform that utilizes state-of-the-art technologies such as a Neo4j graph-database, Angular web framework, RxJS asynchronous event library and D3 visualization to accomplish these goals. Results: The SmartGraph framework integrates high quality bioactivity data and biological pathway information resulting in a knowledgebase comprised of 420,526 unique compound-target interactions defined between 271,098 unique compounds and 2018 targets. SmartGraph then performs bioactivity predictions based on the 63,783 Bemis-Murcko scaffolds extracted from these compounds. Through several use-cases, we illustrate the use of SmartGraph to generate hypotheses for elucidating mechanism-of-action, drug-repurposing and off-target prediction. Availability: https://smartgraph.ncats.io/.