Cited by 171Protein Structure and DynamicsMachine Learning in BioinformaticsEnzyme Structure and Function

Protein sequence design with a learned potential

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Anand, Namrata, Eguchi, Raphael, Mathews, Irimpan I., Perez, Carla P., Derry, Alexander, Altman, Russ B., Huang, Po-Ssu·2022·Nature Communications

Abstract

The task of protein sequence design is central to nearly all rational protein engineering problems, and enormous effort has gone into the development of energy functions to guide design. Here, we investigate the capability of a deep neural network model to automate design of sequences onto protein backbones, having learned directly from crystal structure data and without any human-specified priors. The model generalizes to native topologies not seen during training, producing experimentally stable designs. We evaluate the generalizability of our method to a de novo TIM-barrel scaffold. The model produces novel sequences, and high-resolution crystal structures of two designs show excellent agreement with in silico models. Our findings demonstrate the tractability of an entirely learned method for protein sequence design.

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  • Machine learning sequence design approaches have been developed previously, but have focused on the monomer design problem, achieve lower native sequence recoveries, and with the exception of a TIM barrel design study have not been extensively validated using crystallography and cryoEM.

    “Machine learning sequence design approaches have been developed previously (1–6, 6a), notably the previously described message passing method on which ProteinMPNN is based, but have focused on the monomer design problem, achieve lower native sequence recoveries, and with the exception of a TIM barrel design study (6) have not been extensively validated using crystallography and cryoEM to evaluate”

    From Robust deep learning–based protein sequence design using ProteinMPNN (2022) · cites this paper as [6]

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  • The 2.5 Å crystal structure of L056 has a global fold similar to predictions, with Cα RMSD 2.9 Å from trRosetta and 2.3 Å from WT T4 lysozyme.

    “We determined a 2.5 Å resolution crystal of L056 (see Methods, Figure 3e). The global fold was similar to predictions, with a Cα RMSD of 2.9 Å from the backbone structure predicted by trRosetta and 2.3 Å RMSD from a WT T4 Lysozyme structure59,60.”
  • Jin et al. developed a model that generates both the sequence and structure of a CDR-H3 loop in an autoregressive manner.

    “For instance, Jin et al. [69] developed a model that generates both the sequence and structure of a CDR-H3 loop in an autoregressive manner, similar to work conducted by the Huang group [70] on general protein sequence design.”

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. [18]Anand, N. & Huang, P. Generative modeling for protein structures. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 7494–7505 (2018).
  2. [31]Du, Y. D., Meier, J., Ma, J., Fergus, R. & Rives, A. Energy-based models for atomic-resolution protein conformations. In International Conference on Learning Representations 2020 (2020).
  3. [42]Weiler, M., Geiger, M., Welling, M., Boomsma, W. & Cohen, T. 3d steerable cnns: Learning rotationally equivariant features in volumetric data. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 10381–10392 (2018).
  4. [55]Leaver-Fay, A. et al. in Computer Methods, Part C:Methods in Enzymology Vol. 487 (eds Johnson, M. L. & Brand, L.) Ch. 19, 545–574 (Academic Press, 2011).
  5. [58]Park H Simultaneous optimization of biomolecular energy functions on features from small molecules and macromolecules J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2016 12 6201 6212 27766851 PMC5515585

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Authors
Anand, N., Eguchi, R., Mathews, I. I., Perez, C. P., Derry, A., Altman, R. B., & Huang, P.-S.
Affiliations
  • Stanford University (US)
  • Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (US)
Corresponding author
Huang, Po-Ssu
Venue
Nature Communications
Published
2022-02-08
Volume
13
Issue
1
Pages
746-746
ISSN
2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4210861939
Cited by
171
References
74
Citations by year
2026: 21 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6
FWCI
11.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • U.S. Department of Energy (76SF00515, DE–AC02–76SF00515, AC02‐76SF00515, No. DE-AC02–76SF00515, Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, P30-GM133894, DE-AC02-)
  • National Institutes of Health (DE-AC02-76SF00515, LM012409, GM102365, GM61374)
  • Office of Science (AC02-76SF00515, DE-AC02-76SF0051 5, DE-AC02, 76SF00515)
  • Chemistry, Engineering and Medicine for Human Health, Stanford University
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM102365, GM 61374, U01GM061374, R24GM061374, DE-AC02-76SF00515, T32GM120007, GM102365, P30GM133894)
  • U.S. National Library of Medicine (LM012409, T32LM012409)
  • Basic Energy Sciences (DE-AC02, 76SF00515, Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, AC02-76SF00515, DE-AC-02-76SF00515)
  • Advanced Scientific Computing Research (DE-AC02-76SF00515)
  • Biological and Environmental Research (DE- AC0276SF00515, P30GM133894)
  • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (DEAC02−76SF00515, AC02‐76SF00515, Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515)
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 › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Enzyme Structure and Function
Keywords
protein sequence design, deep neural network, energy function, crystallographic data, de novo protein design, TIM barrel, rational protein design, protein stability
MeSH terms
Protein Domains, Deep Learning, Amino Acid Sequence, Computer Simulation, Models, Molecular, Protein Engineering, Protein Folding, Crystallography, X-Ray

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