1
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Lupo U, Sgarbossa D, Bitbol AF. Pairing interacting protein sequences using masked language modeling. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2311887121. [PMID: 38913900 PMCID: PMC11228504 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2311887121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 06/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Predicting which proteins interact together from amino acid sequences is an important task. We develop a method to pair interacting protein sequences which leverages the power of protein language models trained on multiple sequence alignments (MSAs), such as MSA Transformer and the EvoFormer module of AlphaFold. We formulate the problem of pairing interacting partners among the paralogs of two protein families in a differentiable way. We introduce a method called Differentiable Pairing using Alignment-based Language Models (DiffPALM) that solves it by exploiting the ability of MSA Transformer to fill in masked amino acids in multiple sequence alignments using the surrounding context. MSA Transformer encodes coevolution between functionally or structurally coupled amino acids within protein chains. It also captures inter-chain coevolution, despite being trained on single-chain data. Relying on MSA Transformer without fine-tuning, DiffPALM outperforms existing coevolution-based pairing methods on difficult benchmarks of shallow multiple sequence alignments extracted from ubiquitous prokaryotic protein datasets. It also outperforms an alternative method based on a state-of-the-art protein language model trained on single sequences. Paired alignments of interacting protein sequences are a crucial ingredient of supervised deep learning methods to predict the three-dimensional structure of protein complexes. Starting from sequences paired by DiffPALM substantially improves the structure prediction of some eukaryotic protein complexes by AlphaFold-Multimer. It also achieves competitive performance with using orthology-based pairing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Umberto Lupo
- Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
| | - Damiano Sgarbossa
- Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
| | - Anne-Florence Bitbol
- Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
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2
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Boland DJ, Ayres NM. Cracking AlphaFold2: Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence in undergraduate biochemistry curriculums. PLoS Comput Biol 2024; 20:e1012123. [PMID: 38935611 PMCID: PMC11210786 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/29/2024] Open
Abstract
AlphaFold2 is an Artificial Intelligence-based program developed to predict the 3D structure of proteins given only their amino acid sequence at atomic resolution. Due to the accuracy and efficiency at which AlphaFold2 can generate 3D structure predictions and its widespread adoption into various aspects of biochemical research, the technique of protein structure prediction should be considered for incorporation into the undergraduate biochemistry curriculum. A module for introducing AlphaFold2 into a senior-level biochemistry laboratory classroom was developed. The module's focus was to have students predict the structures of proteins from the MPOX 22 global outbreak virus isolate genome, which had no structures elucidated at that time. The goal of this study was to both determine the impact the module had on students and to develop a framework for introducing AlphaFold2 into the undergraduate curriculum so that instructors for biochemistry courses, regardless of their background in bioinformatics, could adapt the module into their classrooms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Devon J. Boland
- Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America
| | - Nicola M. Ayres
- Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America
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3
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Ellaway JIJ, Anyango S, Nair S, Zaki HA, Nadzirin N, Powell HR, Gutmanas A, Varadi M, Velankar S. Identifying protein conformational states in the Protein Data Bank: Toward unlocking the potential of integrative dynamics studies. STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS (MELVILLE, N.Y.) 2024; 11:034701. [PMID: 38774441 PMCID: PMC11106648 DOI: 10.1063/4.0000251] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2024] [Accepted: 05/08/2024] [Indexed: 05/24/2024]
Abstract
Studying protein dynamics and conformational heterogeneity is crucial for understanding biomolecular systems and treating disease. Despite the deposition of over 215 000 macromolecular structures in the Protein Data Bank and the advent of AI-based structure prediction tools such as AlphaFold2, RoseTTAFold, and ESMFold, static representations are typically produced, which fail to fully capture macromolecular motion. Here, we discuss the importance of integrating experimental structures with computational clustering to explore the conformational landscapes that manifest protein function. We describe the method developed by the Protein Data Bank in Europe - Knowledge Base to identify distinct conformational states, demonstrate the resource's primary use cases, through examples, and discuss the need for further efforts to annotate protein conformations with functional information. Such initiatives will be crucial in unlocking the potential of protein dynamics data, expediting drug discovery research, and deepening our understanding of macromolecular mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph I. J. Ellaway
- Protein Data Bank in Europe, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
| | - Stephen Anyango
- Protein Data Bank in Europe, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
| | - Sreenath Nair
- Protein Data Bank in Europe, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
| | - Hossam A. Zaki
- The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02903, USA
| | - Nurul Nadzirin
- Protein Data Bank in Europe, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
| | - Harold R. Powell
- Imperial College London, Department of Life Sciences, London, United Kingdom
| | - Aleksandras Gutmanas
- WaveBreak Therapeutics Ltd., Clarendon House, Clarendon Road, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Mihaly Varadi
- Protein Data Bank in Europe, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
| | - Sameer Velankar
- Protein Data Bank in Europe, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
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4
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Lin P, Li H, Huang SY. Deep learning in modeling protein complex structures: From contact prediction to end-to-end approaches. Curr Opin Struct Biol 2024; 85:102789. [PMID: 38402744 DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2024.102789] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2023] [Revised: 01/16/2024] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Protein-protein interactions play crucial roles in many biological processes. Traditionally, protein complex structures are normally built by protein-protein docking. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and its great success in monomer protein structure prediction, deep learning has widely been applied to modeling protein-protein complex structures through inter-protein contact prediction and end-to-end approaches in the past few years. This article reviews the recent advances of deep-learning-based approaches in modeling protein-protein complex structures as well as their advantages and limitations. Challenges and possible future directions are also briefly discussed in applying deep learning for the prediction of protein complex structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peicong Lin
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Hao Li
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Sheng-You Huang
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China.
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5
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Martin J. AlphaFold2 Predicts Whether Proteins Interact Amidst Confounding Structural Compatibility. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:1473-1480. [PMID: 38373070 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01805] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/21/2024]
Abstract
Predicting whether two proteins physically interact is one of the holy grails of computational biology, galvanized by rapid advancements in deep learning. AlphaFold2, although not developed with this goal, is promising in this respect. Here, I test the prediction capability of AlphaFold2 on a very challenging data set, where proteins are structurally compatible, even when they do not interact. AlphaFold2 achieves high discrimination between interacting and non-interacting proteins, and the cases of misclassifications can either be rescued by revisiting the input sequences or can suggest false positives and negatives in the data set. AlphaFold2 is thus not impaired by the compatibility between protein structures and has the potential to be applied on a large scale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juliette Martin
- Univ Lyon, CNRS, UMR 5086 MMSB, 7 passage du Vercors F-69367, Lyon, France
- Laboratory of Biology and Modeling of the Cell, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS UMR 5239, Inserm U1293, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69364, Lyon, France
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6
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Lee CY, Hubrich D, Varga JK, Schäfer C, Welzel M, Schumbera E, Djokic M, Strom JM, Schönfeld J, Geist JL, Polat F, Gibson TJ, Keller Valsecchi CI, Kumar M, Schueler-Furman O, Luck K. Systematic discovery of protein interaction interfaces using AlphaFold and experimental validation. Mol Syst Biol 2024; 20:75-97. [PMID: 38225382 PMCID: PMC10883280 DOI: 10.1038/s44320-023-00005-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2023] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/05/2023] [Indexed: 01/17/2024] Open
Abstract
Structural resolution of protein interactions enables mechanistic and functional studies as well as interpretation of disease variants. However, structural data is still missing for most protein interactions because we lack computational and experimental tools at scale. This is particularly true for interactions mediated by short linear motifs occurring in disordered regions of proteins. We find that AlphaFold-Multimer predicts with high sensitivity but limited specificity structures of domain-motif interactions when using small protein fragments as input. Sensitivity decreased substantially when using long protein fragments or full length proteins. We delineated a protein fragmentation strategy particularly suited for the prediction of domain-motif interfaces and applied it to interactions between human proteins associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. This enabled the prediction of highly confident and likely disease-related novel interfaces, which we further experimentally corroborated for FBXO23-STX1B, STX1B-VAMP2, ESRRG-PSMC5, PEX3-PEX19, PEX3-PEX16, and SNRPB-GIGYF1 providing novel molecular insights for diverse biological processes. Our work highlights exciting perspectives, but also reveals clear limitations and the need for future developments to maximize the power of Alphafold-Multimer for interface predictions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chop Yan Lee
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Dalmira Hubrich
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Julia K Varga
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Research Israel-Canada, Faculty of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 9112001, Israel
| | | | - Mareen Welzel
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Eric Schumbera
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
- Computational Biology and Data Mining Group Biozentrum I, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Milena Djokic
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Joelle M Strom
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Jonas Schönfeld
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Johanna L Geist
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Feyza Polat
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany
| | - Toby J Gibson
- Structural and Computational Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, 69117, Germany
| | | | - Manjeet Kumar
- Structural and Computational Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, 69117, Germany
| | - Ora Schueler-Furman
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Research Israel-Canada, Faculty of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 9112001, Israel.
| | - Katja Luck
- Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH, 55128, Mainz, Germany.
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7
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Ozden B, Kryshtafovych A, Karaca E. The impact of AI-based modeling on the accuracy of protein assembly prediction: Insights from CASP15. Proteins 2023; 91:1636-1657. [PMID: 37861057 PMCID: PMC10873090 DOI: 10.1002/prot.26598] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Revised: 09/12/2023] [Accepted: 09/14/2023] [Indexed: 10/21/2023]
Abstract
In CASP15, 87 predictors submitted around 11 000 models on 41 assembly targets. The community demonstrated exceptional performance in overall fold and interface contact predictions, achieving an impressive success rate of 90% (compared to 31% in CASP14). This remarkable accomplishment is largely due to the incorporation of DeepMind's AF2-Multimer approach into custom-built prediction pipelines. To evaluate the added value of participating methods, we compared the community models to the baseline AF2-Multimer predictor. In over 1/3 of cases, the community models were superior to the baseline predictor. The main reasons for this improved performance were the use of custom-built multiple sequence alignments, optimized AF2-Multimer sampling, and the manual assembly of AF2-Multimer-built subcomplexes. The best three groups, in order, are Zheng, Venclovas, and Wallner. Zheng and Venclovas reached a 73.2% success rate over all (41) cases, while Wallner attained 69.4% success rate over 36 cases. Nonetheless, challenges remain in predicting structures with weak evolutionary signals, such as nanobody-antigen, antibody-antigen, and viral complexes. Expectedly, modeling large complexes also remains challenging due to their high memory compute demands. In addition to the assembly category, we assessed the accuracy of modeling interdomain interfaces in the tertiary structure prediction targets. Models on seven targets featuring 17 unique interfaces were analyzed. Best predictors achieved a 76.5% success rate, with the UM-TBM group being the leader. In the interdomain category, we observed that the predictors faced challenges, as in the case of the assembly category, when the evolutionary signal for a given domain pair was weak or the structure was large. Overall, CASP15 witnessed unprecedented improvement in interface modeling, reflecting the AI revolution seen in CASP14.
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Affiliation(s)
- Burcu Ozden
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Türkiye
- Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Türkiye
| | - Andriy Kryshtafovych
- Protein Structure Prediction Center, Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facilities, University of California, Davis, California, USA
| | - Ezgi Karaca
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Türkiye
- Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Türkiye
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8
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Ozden B, Kryshtafovych A, Karaca E. The Impact of AI-Based Modeling on the Accuracy of Protein Assembly Prediction: Insights from CASP15. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.07.10.548341. [PMID: 37503072 PMCID: PMC10369898 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.10.548341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
In CASP15, 87 predictors submitted around 11,000 models on 41 assembly targets. The community demonstrated exceptional performance in overall fold and interface contact prediction, achieving an impressive success rate of 90% (compared to 31% in CASP14). This remarkable accomplishment is largely due to the incorporation of DeepMind's AF2-Multimer approach into custom-built prediction pipelines. To evaluate the added value of participating methods, we compared the community models to the baseline AF2-Multimer predictor. In over 1/3 of cases the community models were superior to the baseline predictor. The main reasons for this improved performance were the use of custom-built multiple sequence alignments, optimized AF2-Multimer sampling, and the manual assembly of AF2-Multimer-built subcomplexes. The best three groups, in order, are Zheng, Venclovas and Wallner. Zheng and Venclovas reached a 73.2% success rate over all (41) cases, while Wallner attained 69.4% success rate over 36 cases. Nonetheless, challenges remain in predicting structures with weak evolutionary signals, such as nanobody-antigen, antibody-antigen, and viral complexes. Expectedly, modeling large complexes remains also challenging due to their high memory compute demands. In addition to the assembly category, we assessed the accuracy of modeling interdomain interfaces in the tertiary structure prediction targets. Models on seven targets featuring 17 unique interfaces were analyzed. Best predictors achieved the 76.5% success rate, with the UM-TBM group being the leader. In the interdomain category, we observed that the predictors faced challenges, as in the case of the assembly category, when the evolutionary signal for a given domain pair was weak or the structure was large. Overall, CASP15 witnessed unprecedented improvement in interface modeling, reflecting the AI revolution seen in CASP14.
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Affiliation(s)
- Burcu Ozden
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Türkiye
- Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Türkiye
| | - Andriy Kryshtafovych
- Protein Structure Prediction Center, Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facilities, University of California, Davis, California, USA
| | - Ezgi Karaca
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Türkiye
- Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Türkiye
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9
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Lee M. Recent Advances in Deep Learning for Protein-Protein Interaction Analysis: A Comprehensive Review. Molecules 2023; 28:5169. [PMID: 37446831 DOI: 10.3390/molecules28135169] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2023] [Revised: 06/30/2023] [Accepted: 06/30/2023] [Indexed: 07/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Deep learning, a potent branch of artificial intelligence, is steadily leaving its transformative imprint across multiple disciplines. Within computational biology, it is expediting progress in the understanding of Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs), key components governing a wide array of biological functionalities. Hence, an in-depth exploration of PPIs is crucial for decoding the intricate biological system dynamics and unveiling potential avenues for therapeutic interventions. As the deployment of deep learning techniques in PPI analysis proliferates at an accelerated pace, there exists an immediate demand for an exhaustive review that encapsulates and critically assesses these novel developments. Addressing this requirement, this review offers a detailed analysis of the literature from 2021 to 2023, highlighting the cutting-edge deep learning methodologies harnessed for PPI analysis. Thus, this review stands as a crucial reference for researchers in the discipline, presenting an overview of the recent studies in the field. This consolidation helps elucidate the dynamic paradigm of PPI analysis, the evolution of deep learning techniques, and their interdependent dynamics. This scrutiny is expected to serve as a vital aid for researchers, both well-established and newcomers, assisting them in maneuvering the rapidly shifting terrain of deep learning applications in PPI analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Minhyeok Lee
- School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea
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10
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Si Y, Yan C. Improved inter-protein contact prediction using dimensional hybrid residual networks and protein language models. Brief Bioinform 2023; 24:7033302. [PMID: 36759333 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbad039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2022] [Revised: 01/13/2023] [Accepted: 01/18/2023] [Indexed: 02/11/2023] Open
Abstract
The knowledge of contacting residue pairs between interacting proteins is very useful for the structural characterization of protein-protein interactions (PPIs). However, accurately identifying the tens of contacting ones from hundreds of thousands of inter-protein residue pairs is extremely challenging, and performances of the state-of-the-art inter-protein contact prediction methods are still quite limited. In this study, we developed a deep learning method for inter-protein contact prediction, which is referred to as DRN-1D2D_Inter. Specifically, we employed pretrained protein language models to generate structural information-enriched input features to residual networks formed by dimensional hybrid residual blocks to perform inter-protein contact prediction. Extensively bechmarking DRN-1D2D_Inter on multiple datasets, including both heteromeric PPIs and homomeric PPIs, we show DRN-1D2D_Inter consistently and significantly outperformed two state-of-the-art inter-protein contact prediction methods, including GLINTER and DeepHomo, although both the latter two methods leveraged the native structures of interacting proteins in the prediction, and DRN-1D2D_Inter made the prediction purely from sequences. We further show that applying the predicted contacts as constraints for protein-protein docking can significantly improve its performance for protein complex structure prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunda Si
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
| | - Chengfei Yan
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
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11
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Towards a structurally resolved human protein interaction network. Nat Struct Mol Biol 2023; 30:216-225. [PMID: 36690744 PMCID: PMC9935395 DOI: 10.1038/s41594-022-00910-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 70.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Accepted: 12/14/2022] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
Cellular functions are governed by molecular machines that assemble through protein-protein interactions. Their atomic details are critical to studying their molecular mechanisms. However, fewer than 5% of hundreds of thousands of human protein interactions have been structurally characterized. Here we test the potential and limitations of recent progress in deep-learning methods using AlphaFold2 to predict structures for 65,484 human protein interactions. We show that experiments can orthogonally confirm higher-confidence models. We identify 3,137 high-confidence models, of which 1,371 have no homology to a known structure. We identify interface residues harboring disease mutations, suggesting potential mechanisms for pathogenic variants. Groups of interface phosphorylation sites show patterns of co-regulation across conditions, suggestive of coordinated tuning of multiple protein interactions as signaling responses. Finally, we provide examples of how the predicted binary complexes can be used to build larger assemblies helping to expand our understanding of human cell biology.
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12
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Akdel M, Pires DEV, Pardo EP, Jänes J, Zalevsky AO, Mészáros B, Bryant P, Good LL, Laskowski RA, Pozzati G, Shenoy A, Zhu W, Kundrotas P, Serra VR, Rodrigues CHM, Dunham AS, Burke D, Borkakoti N, Velankar S, Frost A, Basquin J, Lindorff-Larsen K, Bateman A, Kajava AV, Valencia A, Ovchinnikov S, Durairaj J, Ascher DB, Thornton JM, Davey NE, Stein A, Elofsson A, Croll TI, Beltrao P. A structural biology community assessment of AlphaFold2 applications. Nat Struct Mol Biol 2022; 29:1056-1067. [PMID: 36344848 PMCID: PMC9663297 DOI: 10.1038/s41594-022-00849-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 214] [Impact Index Per Article: 107.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2021] [Accepted: 09/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Most proteins fold into 3D structures that determine how they function and orchestrate the biological processes of the cell. Recent developments in computational methods for protein structure predictions have reached the accuracy of experimentally determined models. Although this has been independently verified, the implementation of these methods across structural-biology applications remains to be tested. Here, we evaluate the use of AlphaFold2 (AF2) predictions in the study of characteristic structural elements; the impact of missense variants; function and ligand binding site predictions; modeling of interactions; and modeling of experimental structural data. For 11 proteomes, an average of 25% additional residues can be confidently modeled when compared with homology modeling, identifying structural features rarely seen in the Protein Data Bank. AF2-based predictions of protein disorder and complexes surpass dedicated tools, and AF2 models can be used across diverse applications equally well compared with experimentally determined structures, when the confidence metrics are critically considered. In summary, we find that these advances are likely to have a transformative impact in structural biology and broader life-science research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mehmet Akdel
- Bioinformatics Group, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands
| | - Douglas E V Pires
- School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Eduard Porta Pardo
- Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), Badalona, Spain
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Jürgen Jänes
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - Arthur O Zalevsky
- Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
| | | | - Patrick Bryant
- Dep of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
| | - Lydia L Good
- Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Roman A Laskowski
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - Gabriele Pozzati
- Dep of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
| | - Aditi Shenoy
- Dep of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
| | - Wensi Zhu
- Dep of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
| | - Petras Kundrotas
- Dep of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
| | | | - Carlos H M Rodrigues
- School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Alistair S Dunham
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - David Burke
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - Neera Borkakoti
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - Sameer Velankar
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - Adam Frost
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Jérôme Basquin
- Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany
| | - Kresten Lindorff-Larsen
- Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Alex Bateman
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK
| | - Andrey V Kajava
- Université de Montpellier, Centre de Recherche en Biologie Cellulaire de Montpellier (CRBM) CNRS, Montpellier, France
| | | | - Sergey Ovchinnikov
- Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | | | - David B Ascher
- School of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
| | - Janet M Thornton
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK.
| | | | - Amelie Stein
- Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
| | - Arne Elofsson
- Dep of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden.
| | - Tristan I Croll
- Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Department of Haematology, The University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
| | - Pedro Beltrao
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, UK.
- Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
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Pozzati G, Kundrotas P, Elofsson A. Scoring of protein–protein docking models utilizing predicted interface residues. Proteins 2022; 90:1493-1505. [PMID: 35246997 PMCID: PMC9314140 DOI: 10.1002/prot.26330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2021] [Revised: 02/23/2022] [Accepted: 02/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Scoring docking solutions is a difficult task, and many methods have been developed for this purpose. In docking, only a handful of the hundreds of thousands of models generated by docking algorithms are acceptable, causing difficulties when developing scoring functions. Today's best scoring functions can significantly increase the number of top‐ranked models but still fail for most targets. Here, we examine the possibility of utilizing predicted interface residues to score docking models generated during the scan stage of a docking algorithm. Many methods have been developed to infer the regions of a protein surface that interact with another protein, but most have not been benchmarked using docking algorithms. This study systematically tests different interface prediction methods for scoring >300.000 low‐resolution rigid‐body template free docking decoys. Overall we find that contact‐based interface prediction by BIPSPI is the best method to score docking solutions, with >12% of first ranked docking models being acceptable. Additional experiments indicated precision as a high‐importance metric when estimating interface prediction quality, focusing on docking constraints production. Finally, we discussed several limitations for adopting interface predictions as constraints in a docking protocol.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriele Pozzati
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory Stockholm University Solna Sweden
| | - Petras Kundrotas
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory Stockholm University Solna Sweden
- Center for Bioinformatics and Department of Molecular Biosciences University of Kansas Lawrence Kansas USA
| | - Arne Elofsson
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Science for Life Laboratory Stockholm University Solna Sweden
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Improved prediction of protein-protein interactions using AlphaFold2. Nat Commun 2022; 13:1265. [PMID: 35273146 PMCID: PMC8913741 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28865-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 318] [Impact Index Per Article: 159.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2021] [Accepted: 02/11/2022] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Predicting the structure of interacting protein chains is a fundamental step towards understanding protein function. Unfortunately, no computational method can produce accurate structures of protein complexes. AlphaFold2, has shown unprecedented levels of accuracy in modelling single chain protein structures. Here, we apply AlphaFold2 for the prediction of heterodimeric protein complexes. We find that the AlphaFold2 protocol together with optimised multiple sequence alignments, generate models with acceptable quality (DockQ ≥ 0.23) for 63% of the dimers. From the predicted interfaces we create a simple function to predict the DockQ score which distinguishes acceptable from incorrect models as well as interacting from non-interacting proteins with state-of-art accuracy. We find that, using the predicted DockQ scores, we can identify 51% of all interacting pairs at 1% FPR. Predicting the structure of protein complexes is extremely difficult. Here, authors apply AlphaFold2 with optimized multiple sequence alignments to model complexes of interacting proteins, enabling prediction of both if and how proteins interact with state-of-art accuracy.
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