Predicting AXL Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Potency Using Machine Learning with Interpretable Insights for Cancer Drug Discovery

AXL tyrosine kinase plays a critical role in cancer progression, metastasis, and therapy resistance, making it a promising target for therapeutic intervention. However, traditional drug discovery methods for developing AXL inhibitors are resource-intensive, time-consuming, and often fail to provide detailed insights into molecular determinants of potency. To address this gap, we applied machine learning techniques, including Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, Support Vector Regression, and Decision Tree models, to predict the potency (pIC50) of AXL inhibitors using a dataset of 972 compounds with 550 molecular descriptors. Our results demonstrate that the Random Forest model outperformed others with an R² of 0.703, MAE of 0.553, RMSE of 0.720, and PCC of 0.841, showcasing strong predictive accuracy. SHAP analysis identified critical molecular features, such as RNCG and TopoPSA(NO), as key contributors to inhibitor potency, providing interpretable insights into structure-activity relationships. These findings highlight the potential of machine learning to accelerate the identification and optimization of AXL inhibitors, bridging the gap between computational predictions and rational drug design and paving the way for effective cancer therapeutics.