| Histamine H3 receptor subtype has been the target of several recent drug development
programs. Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) methods are used to predict the
pharmaceutically relevant properties of drug candidates whenever it is applicable. The aim of
this study was to compare the predictive powers of three different QSAR techniques, namely,
multiple linear regression (MLR), artificial neural network (ANN), and HASL as a 3D QSAR
method, in predicting the receptor binding affinities of arylbenzofuran histamine H3 receptor
antagonists. Genetic algorithm coupled partial least square as well as stepwise multiple
regression methods were used to select a number of calculated molecular descriptors to be used
in MLR and ANN-based QSAR studies. Using the leave-group-out cross-validation technique,
the performances of the MLR and ANN methods were evaluated. The calculated values for the
mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), ranging from 2.9 to 3.6, and standard deviation of
error of prediction (SDEP), ranging from 0.31 to 0.36, for both MLR and ANN methods were
statistically comparable, indicating that both methods perform equally well in predicting the
binding affinities of the studied compounds toward the H3 receptors. On the other hand, the
results from 3D-QSAR studies using HASL method were not as good as those obtained by 2D
methods. It can be concluded that simple traditional approaches such as MLR method can be as
reliable as those of more advanced and sophisticated methods like ANN and 3D-QSAR analyses |