Protein p K a Prediction by Tree-Based Machine Learning
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Abstract
Protonation states of ionizable protein residues modulate many essential biological processes. For correct modeling and understanding of these processes, it is crucial to accurately determine their p K a values. Here, we present four tree-based machine learning models for protein p K a prediction. The four models, Random Forest, Extra Trees, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM), were trained on three experimental PDB and p K a datasets, two of which included a notable portion of internal residues. We observed similar performance among the four machine learning algorithms. The best model trained on the largest dataset performs 37% better than the widely used empirical p K a prediction tool PROPKA and 15% better than the published result from the p K a prediction method DelPhiPKa. The overall root-mean-square error (RMSE) for this model is 0.69, with surface and buried RMSE values being 0.56 and 0.78, respectively, considering six residue types (Asp, Glu, His, Lys, Cys, and Tyr), and 0.63 when considering Asp, Glu, His, and Lys only. We provide p K a predictions for proteins in human proteome from the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database and observed that 1% of Asp/Glu/Lys residues have highly shifted p K a values close to the physiological pH.
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Treating ion distribution with Gaussian-based smooth dielectric function in DelPhi
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PKA17—A Coarse‐Grain Grid‐Based Methodology and Web‐Based Software for Predicting Protein pKa Shifts
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Conformational Reorganization Coupled to the Ionization of Internal Lys Residues in Proteins
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Predicting protein pKa by environment similarity
Milletti, F., Storchi, L., & Cruciani, G. (2009) · Proteins Structure Function and Bioinformatics · doi:10.1002/prot.22363 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Reservoir pH replica exchange.
Damjanovic, A., Miller, B. T., Okur, A., & Brooks, B. (2018) · Journal of Chemical Physics · doi:10.1063/1.5027413 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Self-citationWu, X., Lee, J., & Brooks, B. R. (2016) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry B · doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.6b08249 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Self-citationLiu, J., Swails, J., Zhang, J. Z. H., He, X. D., & Roitberg, A. E. (2018) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/jacs.7b08569 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
pH-Induced Stability Switching of the Bacteriophage HK97 Maturation Pathway
May, E. R., Arora, K., & Brooks, C. L. (2014) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/ja410860n · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Chakravorty, A., Jia, Z., Peng, Y., Tajielyato, N., Wang, L., & Alexov, E. G. (2018) · Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences · doi:10.3389/fmolb.2018.00025 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Application of the Gaussian dielectric boundary in Zap to the prediction of protein pKa values
Word, J. M., & Nicholls, A. O. (2011) · Proteins Structure Function and Bioinformatics · doi:10.1002/prot.23079 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
pH-Dependent Transient Conformational States Control Optical Properties in Cyan Fluorescent Protein
Laricheva, E. N., Goh, G. B., Dickson, A., & Brooks, C. L. (2015) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/ja509233r · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Chen, B., Zhang, H., & Li, M. (2019) · Neural Computing and Applications · doi:10.1007/s00521-018-3956-5 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Exploring conformational changes coupled to ionization states using a hybrid Rosetta‐MCCE protocol
Song, Y. (2011) · Proteins Structure Function and Bioinformatics · doi:10.1002/prot.23146 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Damjanovic, A., Chen, A. Y., Rosenberg, R., Roe, D., Wu, X.-W., & Brooks, B. (2020) · Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics · doi:10.1002/prot.25831 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Self-citationWu, X., & Brooks, B. R. (2015) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004480 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Self-citationChakravorty, A., Panday, S. K., Pahari, S., Zhao, S., & Alexov, E. G. (2020) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00151 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Determinants of conductance of a bacterial voltage-gated sodium channel
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Self-citationSarkar, A., Gupta, P. L., & Roitberg, A. E. (2019) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry B · doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b03816 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Sakipov, S. N., Flores‐Canales, J. C., & Kurnikova, M. G. (2019) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry B · doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b00656 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Sarkar, A., & Roitberg, A. E. (2020) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry B · doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c07136 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Protein pKa prediction with machine learning
Cai, Z., Luo, F., Wang, Y., Li, E., & Huang, Y. (2021) · doi:10.33774/chemrxiv-2021-7gk5l-v2 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Reis, P. B. P. S., Bertolini, M., Montanari, F., Rocchia, W., Machuqueiro, M., & Clevert, D.-A. (2021) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-949180/v1 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Prediction of Protein pKa with Representation LearningPreprint
Gökcan, H., & Isayev, O. (2021) · doi:10.33774/chemrxiv-2021-tcn0f · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
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AlphaFold, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Allostery
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Han, R., Yoon, H., Kim, G., Lee, H., & Lee, Y. (2023) · Pharmaceuticals · doi:10.3390/ph16091259 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
AlphaFold 2 and NMR Spectroscopy: Partners to Understand Protein Structure, Dynamics and Function
Laurents, D. V. (2022) · Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences · doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.906437 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Toward an Integrated Machine Learning Model of a Proteomics Experiment
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Basis for Accurate Protein p <i>K</i> <sub>a</sub> Prediction with Machine Learning
Cai, Z., Liu, T., Lin, Q., He, J., Lei, X., Luo, F., & Huang, Y. (2023) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00254 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Benchmarking In Silico Tools for Cysteine p K a Prediction
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Accurately Predicting Protein p K a Values Using Nonequilibrium Alchemy
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Explainable Graph Neural Networks with Data Augmentation for Predicting p K a of C–H Acids
An, H., Liu, X., Cai, W., & Shao, X. (2023) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00958 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
KaMLs for Predicting Protein p K a Values and Ionization States: Are Trees All You Need?
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Accurate Protein pKa Prediction with Physical Organic Chemistry Guided 3D Protein Representation
Liu, S., Yang, Q., Zhang, L., & Luo, S. (2024) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.4c00354 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Structure-based rational design of covalent probes
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Swarm Smart Meta-Estimator for 2D/2D Heterostructure Design
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PKAD-R: Curated, Redesigned and Expanded Database of Experimental pKa Values in Proteins
Chen, A. Y., Panday, S. K., Ri, K., Alexov, E. G., Brooks, B. R., & Damjanovic, A. (2025) · Journal of Computational Biophysics and Chemistry · doi:10.1142/s2737416525500164 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
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Machine Learning Isotropic g Values of Radical Polymers
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Hung, S.-H., Ye, Z.-R., Cheng, C., Yang, A.-C., Chen, B., & Tsai, M. (2025) · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · doi:10.1021/acs.jctc.5c00085 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Baikété, J., Malloum, A., & Conradie, J. (2025) · Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design · doi:10.1007/s10822-025-00719-9 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Progress in protein pKa prediction
Luo, F., Cai, Z., & Huang, Y. (2023) · Acta Physica Sinica · doi:10.7498/aps.72.20231356 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Xia, H., Wei, D., Guo, Z., & Chung, L. W. (2025) · Biochemistry · doi:10.1021/acs.biochem.4c00587 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Recent advances in AI-driven pKa prediction for proteins and small molecules
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Constant-pH Simulation Methods for Biomolecular Systems
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Ionizable networks mediate pH-dependent allostery in SH2 signaling proteinsPreprint
Dyck, P. K. V., Piszkin, L. J., Gorski, E. A., Nascimento, E. T., Abebe, J. A., Hoffmann, L. M., Peng, J. W., & White, K. A. (2024) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2024.08.21.608875
ME-p K a : A Deep Learning Method with Multimodal Learning for Protein p K a Prediction
Shi, S., Miao, R., Liu, D., Zhang, Y., Ruan, S., Xu, Q., Wang, J., Li, H., & Li, S. (2026) · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · doi:10.1021/acs.jctc.5c01747
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Machine Learning in Predicting the Physicochemical Properties of Drug Candidates
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DeepKa Protein pKa Database: Identifying pH Dependence in the Protein Data Bank.
Yang, B.-R., Lu, X.-X., Cai, Z.-T., Sun, J.-W., & Huang, Y.-D. (2026) · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling · doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.6c01937 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Chen, A. Y., Lee, J., Damjanovic, A., & Brooks, B. R.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Kangwon National University (KR)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lee, Juyong
- Damjanovic, Ana
- Venue
- Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2022-03-15
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 2673-2686
- ISSN
- 1549-9618 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-9626
- PMC
- PMC10510853
- OpenAlex
- W4220734384
- Cited by
- 37
- References
- 134
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 2.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation (publishedVersion)
- ChemRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea (2018R1C1B600543513, 2019M3E5D4066897, 2019M3E5D4066898, 2020R1F1A1075998)
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (75N92019P00048, 75N92020P00042, ZIA HL001051)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Structure and Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
- Keywords
- protonation states, ionizable residues, tree-based machine learning, random forest, XGBoost, LightGBM, extra trees, buried residues, human proteome, AlphaFold structures
- MeSH terms
- Machine Learning, Algorithms, Humans, Kinetics, Proteins
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