4. SMARTS - A Language for Describing Molecular Patterns

Substructure searching, the process of finding a particular pattern (subgraph) in a molecule (graph), is one of the most important tasks for computers in chemistry. It is used in virtually every application that employs a digital representation of a molecule, including depiction (to highlight a particular functional group), drug design (searching a database for similar structures and activity), analytical chemistry (looking for previously-characterized structures and comparing their data to that of an unknown), and a host of other problems.

SMARTS is a language that allows you to specify substructures using rules that are straightforward extensions of SMILES. For example, to search a database for phenol-containing structures, one would use the SMARTS string [OH]c1ccccc1, which should be familiar to those acquainted with SMILES. In fact, almost all SMILES specifications are valid SMARTS targets. Using SMARTS, flexible and efficient substructure-search specifications can be made in terms that are meaningful to chemists.

In the SMILES language, there are two fundamental types of symbols: atoms and bonds. Using these SMILES symbols, once can specify a molecule's graph (its "nodes" and "edges") and assign "labels" to the components of the graph (that is, say what type of atom each node represents, and what type of bond each edge represents).

The same is true in SMARTS: One uses atomic and bond symbols to specify a graph. However, in SMARTS the labels for the graph's nodes and edges (its "atoms" and "bonds") are extended to include "logical operators" and special atomic and bond symbols; these allow SMARTS atoms and bonds to be more general. For example, the SMARTS atomic symbol [C,N] is an atom that can be aliphatic C or aliphatic N; the SMARTS bond symbol ~ (tilde) matches any bond.

4.1 Atomic Primitives

4.2 Bond Primitives

4.3 Logical Operators

All atomic expressions which are not simple primitives must be enclosed in brackets. The default operation is & (high precedence "and"), i.e., two adjacent primitives without an intervening logical operator must both be true for the expression (or subexpression) to be true.

The ability to form expressions gives the SMARTS user a great deal of power to specify exactly what is desired. The two forms of the AND operator are used in SMARTS instead of grouping operators.

4.4 Recursive SMARTS

Such definitions may be considered atomic properties. These expressions can be used in same manner as other atomic primitives (also, they can be nested). Recursive SMARTS expressions are used in the following manner:

The additional power of such expressions is illustrated by the following example which derives an expression for methyl carbons which are ortho to oxygen and meta to a nitrogen on an aromatic ring.

4.5 Component-level grouping of SMARTS

The semantics of the "zero-level" parentheses are that all of the atom and bond expressions within a set of zero-level parentheses must match within a single component of the target.

These component-level grouping operators were added specifically for reaction processing. Without this construct, it is impossible to distinguish inter- versus intramolecular reaction queries. For example:

4.6 Reaction Queries

Reaction queries are expressed using the SMARTS language. SMARTS has been extended to handle reaction query features in much the same fashion as SMILES has been extended to handle reactions.

A reaction query may be composed of optional reactant, agent, and product parts, which are separated by the ">" character. In this case, the parts of the reaction query match against the corresponding roles within the reaction target, as expected. Note that it is also quite reasonable to search a set of reactions by giving a molecule query. In this case, the answer is a hit if the molecule SMARTS matches anywhere within the reaction target. In effect, matching a molecule SMARTS against a reaction target is a query where the role of the SMARTS is unspecified.

The atom mapping for a reaction query is optional. When included in the definition of the pattern, it is used for searching.

If atom maps are used for a SMARTS match, their only effect is to potentially eliminate answers from the result. Atom maps can never, under any circumstance cause the addition of hits to an answer set. Conceptually, one can consider the atom map matching as a post-processing step after a "normal" match. Each of the hits is examined to make sure the atom map classes match on the reactant and product sides of the reaction.

In SMARTS, the atom map has unusual semantics. An atom map is a property which must be evaluated on a global scope during the match. One can not know if the map is correct without considering every atom in the match, in effect requiring the enumeration of every possible path before testing. This is much more computationally expensive than the current SMARTS implementation, which tests the paths as they are built and stops as soon as a path fails to match.

In order to avoid this computational trap, the expressiveness of SMARTS for atom maps has been limited to a low-precedence and operation. That is, only expressions of form: "[expr:n]" or "[expr:?n]" are allowed, where "expr" is any legal atomic expression excluding atom maps and "n" is a map class value. This expression is a low-precedence logical AND between "expr" and the map expression ":n". The following examples illustrate other nuances of the semantics:

The last example is the most confusing. Since there is no "or" logic for atom maps, the behavior when checking the maps is as follows: the query reactants can be bound to any classes in the target. These bindings form the set of allowed product bindings. The product query atoms are then tested against this list. If all of the product atoms pass, then the path is a match. The effect of this procedure is to provide the "logical-OR" semantics for atom maps within the simple implementation. The downside of this implementation is that it can be confusing to the user. Fortunately, the simple pairwise atom maps will suffice for most users.

Finally, atom map labels in molecule SMARTS and unpaired atom map labels in reaction SMARTS are ignored. Stated another way, since the atom maps express the idea of a global association of atoms across a reaction, atom maps on a molecule query have no meaning. Similarly, a lone atom map on a reaction atom which doesn't correspond to any other atoms in the query has no meaning. In both of these cases, the query is identical to the query written without the meaningless atom maps.

In recursive SMARTS, reaction expressions are not allowed. The reasons for this are twofold: first, it isn't clear that the meaning of a recursive SMARTS for a reaction would have any useful expressiveness and second, there is a practical problem with the lexical definitions of reactions: given the strict left-to-right definition of reactant-agent-product, how would one express a product atom in a vector binding?? Of course we can change the syntax for recursive SMARTS or reactions to accommodate this if it becomes clear that it is useful.

4.7 SMARTS Versus SMILES

SMILES is interpreted as a molecule, and it is the resultant molecule (not the SMILES string) which is subject to searching. Similarly, SMARTS is interpreted as a pattern; it is this pattern (not the SMARTS string) which is matched against molecules. For instance, the SMILES "C1=CC=CC=C1" (cyclohexatriene) is interpreted as the benzene molecule. This molecule will be matched by the SMARTS c1ccccc1, which is interpreted as the pattern "6 aromatic carbons in a ring". The SMARTS "C1=CC=CC=C1" makes a pattern ("six aliphatic carbons in a ring with alternating single and double bonds") which will not match benzene. It will, however, match the nonaromatic phenylate cation with SMILES C1=CC=CC=[CH+]1.

When atoms are specified without brackets in SMILES, default values are used; in SMARTS, unspecified properties are not defined to be part of the pattern. For instance, the SMILES O means an aliphatic oxygen with zero charge and two hydrogens, i.e. water. In SMARTS, the same expression means any aliphatic oxygen regardless of charge, hydrogen count, etc, e.g. it will match the oxygen in water, but also those in ethanol, acetone, molecular oxygen, hydroxy and hydronium ions, etc. Specifying [OH2] limits the pattern to match only water (this is also the fully specified SMILES for water).

There are a few anachronisms in most SMILES interpreters which can also lead to confusion. Some SMILES interpreters allow implicit hydrogens to be added as explicit atoms on input as a shortcut. E.g., the SMILES for 1H-pyrrole is "[nH]1cccc1" which is matched by itself as SMARTS and by "n1cccc1". The current Daylight SMILES interpreter will also accept "Hn1cccc1" for (not very good) reasons of historical compatibility; this generates the same (hydrogen-suppressed) molecule as does "[nH]1cccc1" and is matched by the same SMARTS. However, the SMARTS "Hn1cccc1" does not match this molecule.

Most SMARTS expressions are not valid SMILES expressions. For instance, the string "cOc" is a valid SMARTS, matching an aliphatic oxygen connected to two aromatic carbons as part of a larger molecule (e.g. diphenyl ether). However, "cOc" does not describe a molecule per se, and is therefore not a valid SMILES.

4.8 Efficiency Considerations

When this optimization method is not used, there are some things which can be done to facilitate efficient (fast) searching operations using SMARTS. It is important to recognize that SMARTS target strings are processed in strictly left-to-right order. For this reason, substantial gains in speed can be achieved by following these guidelines:

• Uncommon atoms or bond arrangements should be placed early in SMARTS targets.
• In an "and-expression", the less common atom or bond specifications should be placed early.
• In an "or-expression", the less common atom or bond specifications should be placed last.

4.9 Examples

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