ULCYP: A Multitask Model for Predicting P450 Inducers Based on Positive-Unlabeled Learning

Prediction of cytochrome P450 (CYP) induction is highly advantageous in early stage drug discovery, as it helps mitigate the risks of drug-drug interactions and toxicity. However, the development of specialized predictive models for CYP induction remains limited, largely due to the scarcity of available inducer data. To address these challenges, we propose ULCYP, a multitask deep learning framework based on positive-unlabeled (PU) learning for the prediction of CYP induction. ULCYP effectively leverages large-scale unlabeled data to compensate for the lack of trustworthy negative samples, thereby enabling a more accurate estimation of the decision boundary. Comparative evaluations demonstrate that ULCYP outperforms baseline models across multiple performance metrics, achieving an average AUC greater than 0.81 on the test set comprising CYP inducers and nonagonists of key CYP induction mediators, including the pregnane X receptor (PXR), constitutive androstane receptor (CAR), and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). To enhance prediction reliability and interpretability, the integrated gradients method was employed to elucidate key molecular substructures driving model predictions, complemented by a rigorously defined applicability domain. The ULCYP model is publicly accessible at https://lmmd.ecust.edu.cn/ULCYP/.