In-silico ADME Studies for New Drug Discovery: From Chemical Compounds to Chinese Herbal Medicines

Nowadays, in-silico tools are widely used to provide the potential structure of the metabolites formed depending on the site of metabolism. These methods can also highlight the molecular moieties that help to direct the molecule into the cytochrome cavity so that the site of metabolism is in proximity to the catalytic center. In this mini-review, we summarized three aspects of the in-silico methods in the application of prediction the ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) properties of compounds: structure-based approaches for predicting molecular modeling of drug metabolizing enzymes; in-silico metabolite prediction; and pharmacophore models for analysis substrate specificity. Moreover, we also extended the in-silico studies in Chinese herbal medicines (CHM) research.