Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34500568›Full record

ReviewMolecules (Basel, Switzerland)2021

Recent Advances in In Silico Target Fishing.

Salvatore Galati, Miriana Di Stefano, Elisa Martinelli, Giulio Poli, Tiziano Tuccinardi

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
42citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

42 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Kaempferol activity onPharmaceutical biology · 2026
    Article
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Phytochemical Profile and Biological Activities ofPharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Therapeutic Antitoxoplasmosis Potential ofJournal of tropical medicine · 2026
    Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. AI-Driven Polypharmacology in Small-Molecule Drug Discovery.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025
    Review
  15. Review
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Review
  19. Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025
    Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Salvatore GalatiDepartment of Pharmacy, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.ORCID 0000-0002-1959-5839
Miriana Di StefanoDepartment of Pharmacy, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.ORCID 0000-0001-6727-5816
Elisa MartinelliDepartment of Pharmacy, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
Giulio PoliDepartment of Pharmacy, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
Tiziano TuccinardiDepartment of Pharmacy, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.ORCID 0000-0002-6205-4069

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In silico target fishing, whose aim is to identify possible protein targets for a query molecule, is an emerging approach used in drug discovery due its wide variety of applications. This strategy allows the clarification of mechanism of action and biological activities of compounds whose target is still unknown. Moreover, target fishing can be employed for the identification of off targets of drug candidates, thus recognizing and preventing their possible adverse effects. For these reasons, target fishing has increasingly become a key approach for polypharmacology, drug repurposing, and the identification of new drug targets. While experimental target fishing can be lengthy and difficult to implement, due to the plethora of interactions that may occur for a single small-molecule with different protein targets, an in silico approach can be quicker, less expensive, more efficient for specific protein structures, and thus easier to employ. Moreover, the possibility to use it in combination with docking and virtual screening studies, as well as the increasing number of web-based tools that have been recently developed, make target fishing a more appealing method for drug discovery. It is especially worth underlining the increasing implementation of machine learning in this field, both as a main target fishing approach and as a further development of already applied strategies. This review reports on the main in silico target fishing strategies, belonging to both ligand-based and receptor-based approaches, developed and applied in the last years, with a particular attention to the different web tools freely accessible by the scientific community for performing target fishing studies.

Indexed as

AnimalsComputer SimulationDrug DiscoveryDrug RepositioningHumansLigandsMolecular Docking SimulationPharmaceutical PreparationsPolypharmacologyProteinsLigandsPharmaceutical PreparationsProteinsdockingmachine learningmolecular similarityreverse screeningtarget fishing

Identifiers

PMID34500568
PMCPMC8433825

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.