The restriction of a small molecule's motion on binding to a protein causes a loss of configurational entropy, and thus a penalty in binding affinity. Some energy models used in computer-aided ligand design neglect this entropic penalty, whereas others account for it based on an expected drop in the number of accessible rotamers upon binding. However, the validity of the physical assumptions underlying the various approaches is largely unexamined. The present study addresses this issue by using Mining Minima calculations to analyze the association of amprenavir with HIV protease. The computed loss in ligand configurational entropy is large, contributing ϳ25 kcal/mol (4.184 kJ/kcal) to ⌬G°. Most of this loss results from narrower energy wells in the bound state, rather than a drop in the number of accessible rotamers. Coupling among rotation/translation and internal degrees of freedom complicates the decomposition of the entropy change into additive terms. The results highlight the potential to gain affinity by designing conformationally restricted ligands and have implications for the formulation of energy models for ligand scoring.drug design ͉ translation ͉ rotamer ͉ affinity ͉ rotation A drug-like molecule that binds a protein becomes less mobile, and the resulting loss in configurational entropy opposes the attractive forces that drive binding. A number of empirical energy models used in virtual ligand screening include a term to account for this entropic penalty, but the underlying physics is not well characterized and hence merits critical examination. For example, most energy models assume that the ligand's entropy change can be decomposed into additive components, although correlated motions could lead to nonadditivity (see, e.g., refs. 1 and 2). Also, energy models often account for changes in torsional entropy with a term related to the number of rotatable bonds in the ligand, based on reasoning about the number of rotamers each bond can adopt (e.g., refs. 3-8) and a computational analysis of changes in vibrational and conformational entropy on protein folding (9). However, the physical rationale and accuracy of this approach is largely unexamined, especially in the context of protein-ligand binding. Similarly, the common assumption that changes in rotational and translational entropy are constant from one ligand to another appears to be unsupported.Recent calculations with the second-generation Mining Minima algorithm (M2) have provided insight into changes in configurational entropy upon binding for small host-guest systems (10, 11). The computed entropic penalty was found to range as high as ϳ20 kcal/mol, considerably more than typically assumed in ligandprotein scoring functions. The validity of these results is supported by the fact that the computed binding free energies were accurate to within ϳ1 kcal/mol. The entropy change was furthermore found to vary significantly across complexes of the same ligand with different receptors and even across different bound conformations of the same ligand and...