arrow
Return

MoDeMol: A Decomposition-Based Evolutionary Framework for Multi-Objective Molecular Optimization

delete2026-10-03
delete0
delete
OA
AI
C
Chenbin Guo
C
Cai Dai *
DOI:10.3390/ijms27198818delete
deleteOriginal
deleteOriginal request for help
deleteShare
deleteSave
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Lead compound multi-objective optimization requires balancing mutually restrictive drug-like properties, yet conventional latent generative and evolutionary optimization methods suffer from structural-function misalignment, population structural redundancy and low search efficiency under limited evaluation budgets. This work proposes a decomposition-based evolutionary framework built on a score-informed latent space (MoDeMol), with four core innovations: (1) Contrastive fine-tuned Transformer-VAE latent space supervised by predicted dual-target activity scores to improve the alignment between latent spatial proximity and predicted target-activity profiles. (2) Hybrid population initialization combining lead latent perturbation and high-quality molecular bank screening to balance local scaffold retention and global high predicted-activity region exploration. (3) Adaptive resource allocation mechanism for dynamic subproblem computation scheduling to boost optimization efficiency when the property evaluation budget is limited. (4) Dynamic Morgan fingerprint similarity penalization to suppress structural redundancy and maintain diverse molecular scaffolds in the population. Extensive benchmarks on single-target GSK3 β and dual-target GSK3 β/JNK3 kinase optimization tasks demonstrate that MoDeMol outperforms MolFinder, JANUS and MOMO in success rate, Pareto hypervolume and qualified molecular yield. Quantitative latent-space analyses, qualitative visualization, scaffold tracking, and ablation experiments provide complementary evidence for the contributions of the proposed components. The proposed framework addresses representation alignment, structural redundancy, and search-resource allocation within a computational multi-target lead-optimization workflow under limited evaluation budgets.
Keywords:
multi-objective algorithm
molecular optimization
latent-space optimization

Journal

International Journal of Molecular Sciences cover
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
IF:
4.9
Papers:
2.1W
Citations:
44.5W

Organization

S
Shaanxi Normal University
Scholars:
947
Papers: 267
Citations: 0
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

No cited papers available