BRUSELAS (Balanced Rapid and Unrestricted Server for Extensive Ligand-Aimed Screening) is a web architecture to perform shape similarity searching and pharmacophore screening. Both techniques are classified as Ligand-Based Virtual Screening (LBVS) approaches and are widely used in drug discovery. A diversity of algorithms and databases are available for screening and a complete set of parameters is provided for users to customize their calculations.
The server is accessible to any user free of any cost or registration. A powerful result analyzer module is integrated in the tool to allow users to have an overview of the results at a glance, and go into deeper details if desired. Furthermore, results can be downloaded in different formats and loaded in third party tools, such as PyMOL, to manipulate them offline.
BRUSELAS exhibits some design features which make it easily maintainable and expandible:
- a) Modular: it is split into components which can be overwritten and customized.
- b) Scalable: new compounds and algorithms are easily integrable.
- c) Generic: can be applied to different scopes through a wide set of parameters.
- d) Customizable: a set of options are supplied to customize experiments.
