Quantum Convolution for Structure-Based Virtual Screening

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Yang, Pei-Kun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909687307304960
author Yang, Pei-Kun
author_facet Yang, Pei-Kun
contents Structure-based virtual screening (SBVS) is a key computational strategy for identifying potential drug candidates by estimating the binding free energies (delta G_bind) of protein-ligand complexes. The immense size of chemical libraries, combined with the need to account for protein and ligand conformations as well as ligand translations and rotations, makes these tasks computationally intensive on classical hardware. This study proposes a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN) framework to estimate delta G_bind efficiently. Using the PDBbind v2020 dataset, we trained QCNN models with 9 and 12 qubits, with the core set designated as the test set. The best-performing model achieved a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.694 on the test set. To assess robustness, we introduced quantum noise under two configurations. While noise increased the root mean square deviation, the Pearson correlation coefficient remained largely stable. These results demonstrate the feasibility and noise tolerance of QCNNs for high-throughput virtual screening and highlight the potential of quantum computing to accelerate drug discovery.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_09667
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum Convolution for Structure-Based Virtual Screening
Yang, Pei-Kun
Quantum Physics
Structure-based virtual screening (SBVS) is a key computational strategy for identifying potential drug candidates by estimating the binding free energies (delta G_bind) of protein-ligand complexes. The immense size of chemical libraries, combined with the need to account for protein and ligand conformations as well as ligand translations and rotations, makes these tasks computationally intensive on classical hardware. This study proposes a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN) framework to estimate delta G_bind efficiently. Using the PDBbind v2020 dataset, we trained QCNN models with 9 and 12 qubits, with the core set designated as the test set. The best-performing model achieved a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.694 on the test set. To assess robustness, we introduced quantum noise under two configurations. While noise increased the root mean square deviation, the Pearson correlation coefficient remained largely stable. These results demonstrate the feasibility and noise tolerance of QCNNs for high-throughput virtual screening and highlight the potential of quantum computing to accelerate drug discovery.
title Quantum Convolution for Structure-Based Virtual Screening
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09667