Leveraging language model for advanced multiproperty molecular optimization via prompt engineering

Optimizing a candidate molecule's physiochemical and functional properties has been a critical task in drug and material design. Although the non-trivial task of balancing multiple (potentially conflicting) optimization objectives is considered ideal for artificial intelligence, several technical challenges such as the scarcity of multiproperty-labelled training data have hindered the development of a satisfactory AI solution for a long time. Prompt-MolOpt is a tool for molecular optimization; it makes use of prompt-based embeddings, as used in large language models, to improve the transformer's ability to optimize molecules for specific property adjustments. Notably, Prompt-MolOpt excels in working with limited multiproperty data (even under the zero-shot setting) by effectively generalizing causal relationships learned from single-property datasets. In comparative evaluations against established models such as JTNN, hierG2G and Modof, Prompt-MolOpt achieves over a 15% relative improvement in multiproperty optimization success rates compared with the leading Modof model. Furthermore, a variant of Prompt-MolOpt, named Prompt-MolOptP, can preserve the pharmacophores or any user-specified fragments under the structural transformation, further broadening its application scope. By constructing tailored optimization datasets, with the protocol introduced in this work, Prompt-MolOpt steers molecular optimization towards domain-relevant chemical spaces, enhancing the quality of the optimized molecules. Real-world tests, such as those involving blood-brain barrier permeability optimization, underscore its practical relevance. Prompt-MolOpt offers a versatile approach for multiproperty and multi-site molecular optimizations, suggesting its potential utility in chemistry research and drug and material discovery. Designing molecules in drug design is challenging as it requires optimizing multiple, potentially competing qualities. Wu and colleagues present a prompt-based molecule optimization method that can be trained from single-property data.