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Structure-activity relationship

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Structure-activity relationship { SAR } is the traditional Practices of medicinal chemistry which try to modify the effect or the potency {ie. Activity} of Bioactive chemical compound by modifying its chemical structure. traditional medicinal chemists were using the chemical techniques of synthesis to insert new chemical groups into the biomedical compound and test the modifications in its biological Effect .

That enabled them to determine the responsible chemical groups for evoking the biological effect in the organism . Later this method has been developed into trial to build mathematical relationships between the Chemical structure and the biological activity , that is what is know as Qsar .

SAR and SAR paradoxEdit

The basic assumption for all molecule based hypotheses is that similar molecules have similar activities. This principle is also called Structure-Activity Relationship (SAR). The underlying problem is therefore how to define a small difference on a molecular level, since each kind of activity, e.g. reaction ability, biotransformation ability, solubility, target activity, and so on, might depend on another difference. A good example was given in the bioisosterism review of Patanie/LaVoie.[1]

From the computer science standpoint, the no-free-lunch theorem proves that no general algorithm can exist to define e.g. a small difference for always getting the best hypothesis.




  1. G. A. Patani, E. J. LaVoie, Bioisosterism: A Rational Approach in Drug Design. Chem. Rev., 1996, 96, 3147-3176. DOI:10.1021/cr950066q

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