Cited by 772Machine Learning in BioinformaticsGenetic Associations and EpidemiologyGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 97 of the 98 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 14 of the 30 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Nucleotide Transformer: building and evaluating robust foundation models for human genomics

Open access

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Abstract Closing the gap between measurable genetic information and observable traits is a longstanding challenge in genomics. Yet, the prediction of molecular phenotypes from DNA sequences alone remains limited and inaccurate, often driven by the scarcity of annotated data and the inability to transfer learnings between prediction tasks. Here, we present an extensive study of foundation models pre-trained on DNA sequences, named the Nucleotide Transformer, integrating information from 3,202 diverse human genomes, as well as 850 genomes from a wide range of species, including model and non-model organisms. These transformer models yield transferable, context-specific representations of nucleotide sequences, which allow for accurate molecular phenotype prediction even in low-data settings. We show that the sequence representations alone match or outperform specialized methods on 12 of 18 prediction tasks, and up to 15 after fine-tuning. Despite no supervision, the transformer models learned to focus attention on key genomic elements, including those that regulate gene expression, such as enhancers. Lastly, we demonstrate that utilizing model representations can improve the prioritization of functional genetic variants. The training and application of foundational models in genomics explored in this study provide a widely applicable stepping stone to bridge the gap of accurate molecular phenotype prediction from DNA sequence.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

Nucleotide Transformer introduces and benchmarks DNA foundation models from 50 million to 2.5 billion parameters pretrained on the human reference genome, 3,202 human genomes, and 850 species genomes. Fine-tuned models match or exceed supervised baselines across many genomic tasks, learn regulatory elements without supervision, and prioritize variants, with optimized NT-v2 models achieving strong performance at much smaller sizes.

Key findings

  • Fine-tuned NT models matched (n = 6) or surpassed (n = 12) the 18 BPNet baseline models; probing alone matched 5 and exceeded 8 out of 18 tasks.
  • The Multispecies 2.5B model achieved the highest overall performance across the 18 tasks compared with DNABERT-2, HyenaDNA-32-kb, and Enformer, and matched or outperformed HyenaDNA in all 18 tasks (matched n = 7, outperformed n = 11).
  • On additional tasks, the Multispecies 2.5B model reached a top-k accuracy of 95% and precision-recall AUC of 0.98 for splice-site prediction; the NT-v2 500M 12-kb model improved this to 96% top-k accuracy and 0.98 precision-recall AUC.
  • The NT-v2 250M model attained the best benchmark performance (average MCC of 0.769) while being ten-times smaller than the 2.5B-parameter model; zero-shot variant scores reached AUCs of 0.7–0.8, with ClinVar AUC 0.80 for the Multispecies 2.5B model.

Methods

  • Encoder-only transformer language models trained with masked language modeling on six-mer tokens; NT-v1 used 6-kb context and NT-v2 used 12-kb context with rotary embeddings, swiGLU activations, and no MLP biases or dropout.
  • Pre-training datasets included the human reference genome, 3,202 high-coverage human genomes from the 1000 Genomes Project, and 850 species genomes; models ranged from 50 million to 2.5 billion parameters.
  • Evaluation used 18 curated genomic tasks with tenfold cross-validation, probing and parameter-efficient IA3 fine-tuning, comparisons with BPNet, DNABERT-2, HyenaDNA, and Enformer, plus additional DeepSEA, SpliceAI, and DeepSTARR tasks and zero-shot variant-effect scoring.

Limitations

  • The authors state that the models’ attention span remains limited; they note that Enformer suggested perception fields up to 200 kb may be needed for long-range dependencies, that standard transformers scale quadratically with sequence length, and that HyenaDNA performance deteriorated when its training perception field increased.
  • The authors state that supervised models with optimized architectures and extensive training on large datasets continue to demonstrate superior performance, though DNA language models remain competitive on several tasks.
  • The authors note that Enformer’s benchmark performance might be inflated due to potential data leakage from different original data splits; the text also makes evident that the 18-task benchmark datasets were subsampled to a maximum of 30,000 training and 3,000 validation/testing examples, which may limit generalizability.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41592-024-02523-z

Cites

97 of 98 references verified0 citation errors · 1 not checkable

Statistics

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Figures

Fig. 1 Nucleotide Transformer: effective methodology to pre-train, fine-tune, analyze and compare foundational models for genomics. a,b, Overview of NT training (a) and application for downstream genomic prediction tasks through fine-tuning (b). Downstream task prediction through probing is similar but without the rescaling weights in the NT. c, Comparison of NT models to other foundational genomics models in terms of perception field size, number of parameters and performance over our benchmark made of 18 curated downstream tasks. d, Graphical representation of genomic features considered for downstream tasks (adapted from elsewhere48).
Fig. 1 Nucleotide Transformer: effective methodology to pre-train, fine-tune, analyze and compare foundational models for genomics. a,b, Overview of NT training (a) and application for downstream genomic prediction tasks through fine-tuning (b). Downstream task prediction through probing is similar but without the rescaling weights in the NT. c, Comparison of NT models to other foundational genomics models in terms of perception field size, number of parameters and performance over our benchmark made of 18 curated downstream tasks. d, Graphical representation of genomic features considered for downstream tasks (adapted from elsewhere48).CC BY-NC-ND · PubMed Central
Fig. 2 The Nucleotide Transformer model accurately predicts diverse genomics tasks after fine-tuning. a, Performance results across downstream tasks for fine-tuned NT models as well as HyenaDNA, DNABERT and Enformer pre-trained models based on the MCC. We also trained BPNet models from scratch for comparison (original, 121,000 parameters; large, 28 million parameters). Data are presented as mean MCC ± 2 × s.d. from the tenfold cross-validation procedure (n = 10 for each point). b, Normalized mean of MCC performance across downstream tasks (divided by category) for all LMs after fine-tuning. c, The Multispecies 2.5B model performance on DNase I hypersensitive sites (DHSs), histone marks (HMs) and TF site predictions from different human cells and tissues compared to the baseline DeepSEA model. Each dot represents the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) AUC for a different genomic profile. The average AUC per model is labeled. d, The Multispecies 2.5B model performance on predicting splice sites from the human genome, compared to the SpliceAI and other splicing models. e, The Multispecies 2.5B model performance on developmental and housekeeping enhancer activity predictions from Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells, compared to the baseline DeepSTARR model.
Fig. 2 The Nucleotide Transformer model accurately predicts diverse genomics tasks after fine-tuning. a, Performance results across downstream tasks for fine-tuned NT models as well as HyenaDNA, DNABERT and Enformer pre-trained models based on the MCC. We also trained BPNet models from scratch for comparison (original, 121,000 parameters; large, 28 million parameters). Data are presented as mean MCC ± 2 × s.d. from the tenfold cross-validation procedure (n = 10 for each point). b, Normalized mean of MCC performance across downstream tasks (divided by category) for all LMs after fine-tuning. c, The Multispecies 2.5B model performance on DNase I hypersensitive sites (DHSs), histone marks (HMs) and TF site predictions from different human cells and tissues compared to the baseline DeepSEA model. Each dot represents the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) AUC for a different genomic profile. The average AUC per model is labeled. d, The Multispecies 2.5B model performance on predicting splice sites from the human genome, compared to the SpliceAI and other splicing models. e, The Multispecies 2.5B model performance on developmental and housekeeping enhancer activity predictions from Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells, compared to the baseline DeepSTARR model.CC BY-NC-ND · PubMed Central
Fig. 3 The Nucleotide Transformer models acquired knowledge about genomic elements. a, t-SNE projections of embeddings of five genomic elements from layer 1, 5 and 21 based on the Multispecies 2.5B model. b, Accuracy estimates based on probing to classify five genomic elements across layers. c, Schematic describing the evaluation of attention levels at a given genomic element. d, Attention percentages per head and layer across the Multispecies 2.5B model computed on 5′ UTR, exon, enhancer and promoter regions. Barplot on the right of each tile plot shows the maximum attention percentage across all heads for a given layer.
Fig. 3 The Nucleotide Transformer models acquired knowledge about genomic elements. a, t-SNE projections of embeddings of five genomic elements from layer 1, 5 and 21 based on the Multispecies 2.5B model. b, Accuracy estimates based on probing to classify five genomic elements across layers. c, Schematic describing the evaluation of attention levels at a given genomic element. d, Attention percentages per head and layer across the Multispecies 2.5B model computed on 5′ UTR, exon, enhancer and promoter regions. Barplot on the right of each tile plot shows the maximum attention percentage across all heads for a given layer.CC BY-NC-ND · PubMed Central
Fig. 4 Prioritizing functional genetic variants. a, Overview of the NT application of zero-shot predictions. b, Proportion of variant consequence terms across deciles based on the cosine similarity metric across models. The consequence terms are shown in order of severity (less severe to more severe) as estimated by Ensembl. c, Comparison of zero-shot predictions for prioritizing functional variants based on different distance metrics. d, Comparison of fine-tuned models and available methods for prioritizing functional variants based on GRASP eQTLs and meQTLs, ClinVar and HGMD annotated mutations. Model performance is measured with the ROC AUC. The AUC for the three best-performing models is shown.
Fig. 4 Prioritizing functional genetic variants. a, Overview of the NT application of zero-shot predictions. b, Proportion of variant consequence terms across deciles based on the cosine similarity metric across models. The consequence terms are shown in order of severity (less severe to more severe) as estimated by Ensembl. c, Comparison of zero-shot predictions for prioritizing functional variants based on different distance metrics. d, Comparison of fine-tuned models and available methods for prioritizing functional variants based on GRASP eQTLs and meQTLs, ClinVar and HGMD annotated mutations. Model performance is measured with the ROC AUC. The AUC for the three best-performing models is shown.CC BY-NC-ND · PubMed Central
Fig. 5 Efficient model architecture allows matching performance while strongly reducing the number of model parameters. a, NTr-v2 models loss value evolution during training as a function of the number of tokens seen so far. b, Normalized mean of MCC performance for NT-v2 models as a function of the number of tokens seen during pre-training. c, Normalized mean of MCC performance across downstream tasks (divided by category) for all NT (gray) and -v2 (blue shades) NT models after fine-tuning. Black dashed line represents the performance of the NT 2.5B Multispecies model. d, Overview of the NT fine-tuning on nucleotide-level splice site prediction task. Pre-trained weights and weights trained from scratch are highlighted. e, The Multispecies v2 500M model performance on predicting splice sites from the human genome, compared to its 2.5B counterpart and SpliceAI.
Fig. 5 Efficient model architecture allows matching performance while strongly reducing the number of model parameters. a, NTr-v2 models loss value evolution during training as a function of the number of tokens seen so far. b, Normalized mean of MCC performance for NT-v2 models as a function of the number of tokens seen during pre-training. c, Normalized mean of MCC performance across downstream tasks (divided by category) for all NT (gray) and -v2 (blue shades) NT models after fine-tuning. Black dashed line represents the performance of the NT 2.5B Multispecies model. d, Overview of the NT fine-tuning on nucleotide-level splice site prediction task. Pre-trained weights and weights trained from scratch are highlighted. e, The Multispecies v2 500M model performance on predicting splice sites from the human genome, compared to its 2.5B counterpart and SpliceAI.CC BY-NC-ND · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

59 Own result · 30 Own interpretation · 23 Own method · 18 No basis given · 11 Sources not found · 5 Partly supported · 3 Supported · 3 No full text of the sources · 1 Not supported · 1 Couldn’t confirm · accuracy not yet measured

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  • It may state two separate claims as one. 46
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 35
72 of 72
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The most severely pathogenic variants tend to impact gene function due to amino acid changes.

    “Given that the most severely pathogenic variants tend to impact gene function due to amino acid changes”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The 18 downstream genomic prediction tasks are representative of a wide range of genomics tasks.

    “In summary, these results affirmed the utility and effectiveness of both NT v1 and v2 models for a wide range of genomics tasks”
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Citations

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Li, F.-Z., Amini, A. P., Yang, K. K. & Lu, A. X. Pretrained protein language model transfer learning: is the final layer representation what we want? in Machine Learning for Structural Biology Workshop (NeurIPS, 2022).

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Metadata

Authors
Dalla-Torre, H., Gonzalez, L., Mendoza-Revilla, J., Lopez Carranza, N., Grzywaczewski, A. H., Oteri, F., Dallago, C., Trop, E., de Almeida, B. P., Sirelkhatim, H., Richard, G., Skwark, M., Beguir, K., Lopez, M., & Pierrot, T.
Affiliations
Nvidia (United States) (US)
Corresponding author
  • Lopez, Marie
  • Pierrot, Thomas
Venue
Nature Methods
Published
2024-11-28
Volume
22
Issue
2
Pages
287-297
ISSN
  • 1548-7091 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-7105
OpenAlex
W4404821554
Cited by
772
References
74
Citations by year
2026: 433 · 2025: 243 · 2024: 85
FWCI
87.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Methods (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Research Square (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
Keywords
Nucleotide Transformer, sequence representation, transfer learning, low-data settings, enhancers, gene expression regulation, transformer models
MeSH terms
Algorithms, Base Sequence, Humans, Models, Genetic, Phenotype, Genome, Human, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Computational Biology, Genomics

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