Studying drug-receptor interactions with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and freeware

Abstract

Computational tools are important to help students to understand the concepts of drug-receptor interactions and to visualize 3D structures of ligand-macromolecule complexes in the Medicinal Chemistry course. In this work some computational practices are performed using drug-receptor structures available in PDB, the largest database of proteins, and a freeware viewer program for 3D structures, for a better understanding of students' concepts of intermolecular drug-receptor interactions. The complexes selected were chosen in line with the complexes covered in classroom lectures. Thus, the course fundamentals were contextualized and the new approach proved to be an important tool in the teaching-learning process.