Biomarker discovery and drug repurposing in hepatocellular carcinoma through transcriptomics, machine learning, network pharmacology, and molecular dynamics. (PubMed, Comput Biol Chem)
Drug-gene interaction mining mapped 78 target proteins to clinically relevant compounds, including tolrestat, alcuronium, metyrosine, and 4-phenylbutyric acid...Physicochemical and pharmacokinetic profiling further prioritised tolrestat as a computationally favourable candidate (MW = 357.35, LogP = 3.64, TPSA = 81.86 Ų), exhibiting acceptable drug-likeness, high predicted gastrointestinal absorption, and low synthetic complexity (SA = 2.34), in contrast to alcuronium (MW = 666.89, SA = 7.86), which showed multiple rule violations. Collectively, this in silico study proposes a robust diagnostic gene signature for HCC and identifies tolrestat as a promising repurposing candidate that warrants experimental validation, demonstrating the utility of integrating machine learning, network biology, and molecular simulation in translational cancer research.