What is a Bioisostere?
A bioisostere is a compound resulting from the exchange of an atom or of a group of atoms with another, broadly similar, atom or group of atoms.
Alfred Burger, in Progress in Drug Research, offered a definition of bioisosterism in 1991 as follows:
"Compounds or groups that possess near-equal molecular shapes and volumes, approximately the same distribution of electrons, and which exhibit similar physicochemical properties."
The objective of a bioisosteric replacement is to create a new compound with similar biological properties to the parent compound. (See also isostere.)
