AI summaryⓘ
The authors present a new hybrid method combining classical and quantum computing techniques to better calculate how proteins and small molecules bind together, which is important for drug discovery. They improved existing methods by making some complex calculations simpler and introducing a machine learning model to better capture important molecular configurations. They tested their approach on various molecules and realistic drug-related systems, showing it works efficiently even with simulated quantum hardware errors. This method uses much less classical computing power than previous state-of-the-art techniques, potentially making drug simulations faster and cheaper. Their work is the first to apply these specific advanced techniques together on relevant protein-ligand systems.
protein-ligand bindingquantum chemistryUCCSD ansatzMP2 amplitudesRestricted Boltzmann MachineDMETquantum simulationQSCIpotential energy surfacedrug discovery
Authors
Anurag K. S. V., Ashish Kumar Patra, Manas Mukherjee, Ruchika Bhat, Sai Shankar P., Rahul Maitra, Jaiganesh G
Abstract
Calculation of binding energies for protein-ligand molecular systems requires accurate treatment of the electronic structure, a quantum chemistry problem that scales exponentially on classical hardware, while current quantum hardware remains too noisy for the required circuit depths. This report presents a hybrid quantum-classical workflow performed on the Fujitsu FX700 ideal state-vector simulator using QARP that addresses two structural inefficiencies in quantum-sampling-based diagonalization workflows. First, we integrate the Linear Scaling CNOT UCCSD (LCNot-UCCSD) ansatz into the QSCI framework, replacing the $\mathcal{O}(N^6)$ CCSD parameter initialization of the competing LUCJ ansatz approach with $\mathcal{O}(N^4)$ MP2-amplitude initialization. Second, we introduce QSCI-RBM, a variant that replaces the configuration recovery of the SQD framework with a Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) acting as a compact generative subspace expansion model. Both are evaluated on eight different molecules in STO-3G across 14 controlled artificial error levels with 100 independent runs each, validated on potential energy surface scans of the N$_2$ molecule in cc-pVDZ, and embedded within DMET to treat the FDA-approved antiviral Amantadine (C$_{10}$H$_{17}$N, 11 DMET fragments) and the active region of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease complexed with its covalent inhibitor Carmofur (PDB: 7BUY, C$_{15}$H$_{28}$N$_4$O$_5$S, 10 fragments). To our knowledge, this is the first deployment of LCNot-UCCSD within QSCI on a quantum computing simulator, and the first DMET-QSCI(LCNot-UCCSD)-RBM application to an industry-relevant protein-ligand system. By utilizing a fraction of the classical computing resources required by the current state-of-the-art work by Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Quantum, this approach enables more efficient and economical drug discovery simulations for the industry.