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Peer-reviewed articleOpen access

Structure-based molecular modeling of a novel S-Remiketamine scaffold and derived arylcyclohexanone analogues: NMDA receptor dynamics, MM-GBSA ranking, and CES1-Oriented structural compatibility.

Alkhatip AAAMM, Raza U, Farag E, Hamza MK, Hosny H, Sallam A, Farag AMG, Wagih M, Naguib A, Abdulmegid AM, Algameel H, Bahr MH

Frontiers in chemistrySep 3, 2026License: open accessUnited Kingdom, Ireland0 citationsDOI: 10.3389/fchem.2026.1922077

Abstract

<h4>Introduction</h4>Short-acting ketamine-related scaffold design remains an important medicinal-chemistry problem, but computational studies require conservative interpretation until receptor, enzymatic, and pharmacokinetic validation is available.<h4>Methods</h4>S-ketamine, S-Remiketamine, and R1-R20 analogues were assessed using ligand curation, NMDA receptor docking, cross-target docking, explicit-solvent molecular dynamics, MM-GBSA analysis, CES1-oriented geometric assessment, and predictive ADMET/metabolite-route analysis.<h4>Results</h4>Static NMDA docking ranked R2 highest (Glide score -7.308 kcal/mol), while S-Remiketamine showed a more favorable predicted NMDA score than S-ketamine (-6.448 vs. -5.981 kcal/mol). Within the dynamically evaluated subset, NMDA end-state MM-GBSA values were -41.53 kcal/mol for R2, -28.80 kcal/mol for R11, and -42.10 kcal/mol for R14. In CES1 modeling, R14 was the only evaluated compound whose MM-GBSA became more favorable from 0 to 100 ns (-83.91 to -99.44 kcal/mol).<h4>Discussion</h4>These results support R2 as the strongest static NMDA docking/NMDA-preference benchmark and R14 as the most internally consistent integrated computational candidate. The findings are hypothesis-generating and require synthesis and experimental validation.

Topics & conditions

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Ketamine

Keywords

Molecular modelingMolecular dynamicsNMDA receptorcomputer-aided drug designCarboxylesterase 1Mm-gbsaS-ketamineS-Remiketamine

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