Molecular features for antitrypanosomal activity of thiosemicarbazones revealed by OPS-PLS QSAR studies.

A quantitative structure-activity relationship analysis was employed to explore the relationship between the molecular structure of thiosemicarbazone analogues and the inhibition of the cysteine protease cruzain, a validated target for Chagas' disease treatment. A data set containing 53 thiosemicarbazone derivatives was used to produce a quantitative model for activity prediction of unknown compounds. Several electronic descriptors were obtained through DFT calculations, along with a large amount of Dragon descriptors.