New molecular modeling approaches, driven by rapidly improving computational platforms, have allowed many success stories for the use of computer-assisted drug design in the discovery of new mechanism-or structure-based drugs. In this overview, we highlight three aspects of the use of molecular docking. First, we discuss the combination of molecular and quantum mechanics to investigate an unusual enzymatic mechanism of a flavoprotein. Second, we present recent advances in anti-infectious agents’ synthesis driven by structural insights. At the end, we focus on larger biological complexes made by protein–protein interactions and discuss their relevance in drug design. This review provides information on how these large systems, even in the presence of the solvent, can be investigated with the outlook of drug discovery.

We present the results for CAPRI Round 46, the third joint CASP‐CAPRI protein assembly prediction challenge. The Round comprised a total of 20 targets including 14 homo‐oligomers and 6 heterocomplexes. Eight of the homo‐oligomer targets and one heterodimer comprised proteins that could be readily modeled using templates from the Protein Data Bank, often available for the full assembly. The remaining 11 targets comprised 5 homodimers, 3 heterodimers, and two higher‐order assemblies. These were more difficult to model, as their prediction mainly involved “ab‐initio” docking of subunit models derived from distantly related templates. A total of ~30 CAPRI groups, including 9 automatic servers, submitted on average ~2000 models per target. About 17 groups participated in the CAPRI scoring rounds, offered for most targets, submitting ~170 models per target. The prediction performance, measured by the fraction of models of acceptable quality or higher submitted across all predictors groups, was very good to excellent for the nine easy targets. Poorer performance was achieved by predictors for the 11 difficult targets, with medium and high quality models submitted for only 3 of these targets. A similar performance “gap” was displayed by scorer groups, highlighting yet again the unmet challenge of modeling the conformational changes of the protein components that occur upon binding or that must be accounted for in template‐based modeling. Our analysis also indicates that residues in binding interfaces were less well predicted in this set of targets than in previous Rounds, providing useful insights for directions of future improvements.

Non-coding (nc) RNAs are increasingly recognized to play important regulatory roles in eukaryotic gene expression. The highly abundant and essential 7SK ncRNA has been shown to negatively regulate RNA Polymerase II transcription by inactivating the positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb) in cellular and Tat-dependent HIV transcription. Here, we identify a more general, P-TEFb-independent role of 7SK RNA in directly affecting the function of the architectural transcription factor and chromatin regulator HMGA1. An important regulatory role of 7SK RNA in HMGA1-dependent cell differentiation and proliferation regulation is uncovered with the identification of over 1500 7SK-responsive HMGA1 target genes. Elevated HMGA1 expression is observed in nearly every type of cancer making the use of a 7SK substructure in the inhibition of HMGA1 activity, as pioneered here, potentially useful in therapy. The 7SK-HMGA1 interaction not only adds an essential facet to the comprehension of transcriptional plasticity at the coupling of initiation and elongation, but also might provide a molecular link between HIV reprogramming of cellular gene expression-associated oncogenesis.