Algorithm for reaction classification.

Reaction classification has important applications, and many approaches to classification have been applied. Our own algorithm tests all maximum common substructures (MCS) between all reactant and product molecules in order to find an atom mapping containing the minimum chemical distance (MCD). Recent publications have concluded that new MCS algorithms need to be compared with existing methods in a reproducible environment, preferably on a generalized test set, yet the number of test sets available is small, and they are not truly representative of the range of reactions that occur in real reaction databases. We have designed a challenging test set of reactions and are making it publicly available and usable with InfoChem's software or other classification algorithms. We supply a representative set of example reactions, grouped into different levels of difficulty, from a large number of reaction databases that chemists actually encounter in practice, in order to demonstrate the basic requirements for a mapping algorithm to detect the reaction centers in a consistent way. We invite the scientific community to contribute to the future extension and improvement of this data set, to achieve the goal of a common standard.

International chemical identifier for reactions (RInChI).

The Reaction InChI (RInChI) extends the idea of the InChI, which provides a unique descriptor of molecular structures, towards reactions. Prototype versions of the RInChI have been available since 2011. The first official release (RInChI-V1.00), funded by the InChI Trust, is now available for download ( http://www.inchi-trust.org/downloads/ ). This release defines the format and generates hashed representations (RInChIKeys) suitable for database and web operations. The RInChI provides a concise description of the key data in chemical processes, and facilitates the manipulation and analysis of reaction data.

International chemical identifier for reactions (RInChI).

The IUPAC International Chemical Identifier (InChI) provides a method to generate a unique text descriptor of molecular structures. Building on this work, we report a process to generate a unique text descriptor for reactions, RInChI. By carefully selecting the information that is included and by ordering the data carefully, different scientists studying the same reaction should produce the same RInChI. If differences arise, these are most likely the minor layers of the InChI, and so may be readily handled. RInChI provides a concise description of the key data in a chemical reaction, and will help enable the rapid searching and analysis of reaction databases.