Cited by 270Protein Structure and DynamicsMachine Learning in BioinformaticsEnzyme Structure and Function

Towards a structurally resolved human protein interaction network

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Burke, David F., Bryant, Patrick, Barrio-Hernandez, Inigo, Memon, Danish, Pozzati, Gabriele, Shenoy, Aditi, Zhu, Wensi, Dunham, Alistair S. +8 more·2023·Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

Published version of a preprint

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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  • AlphaFold-Multimer is being used to uncover protein-protein interactions on the scale of pathways and organisms.

    “AF-M is being used to uncover PPIs on the scale of pathways and organisms15–24.”

    From Predictomes, a classifier-curated database of AlphaFold-modeled protein-protein interactions (2025) · cites this paper as [17]

    The Main section reports modeling 65,484 human protein interactions, supporting the organism-scale aspect. But Methods > Protein complex prediction says the study used FoldDock based on AlphaFold2, not AlphaFold-Multimer; the latter appears only in a reference. Thus this paper supports large-scale interaction modeling, but not the claim that AF-M was the method used. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Authors
Burke, D. F., Bryant, P., Barrio-Hernandez, I., Memon, D., Pozzati, G., Shenoy, A., Zhu, W., Dunham, A. S., Albanese, P., Keller, A., Scheltema, R. A., Bruce, J. E., Leitner, A., Kundrotas, P., Beltrao, P., & Elofsson, A.
Affiliations
  • European Bioinformatics Institute (GB)
  • Stockholm University (SE)
  • Utrecht University (NL)
  • University of Washington (US)
  • ETH Zurich (CH)
  • University of Kansas (US)
Corresponding author
  • Kundrotas, Petras
  • Elofsson, Arne
Venue
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Published
2023-01-23
Volume
30
Issue
2
Pages
216-225
ISSN
  • 1545-9985 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-9993
OpenAlex
W4317802023
Cited by
269
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 50 · 2025: 60 · 2024: 80 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 21
FWCI
22.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nd)
  • Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • KU ScholarWorks (The University of Kansas) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • ETH Zürich Research Collection (cc-by)
  • ETH Zürich Research Collection
Funders
  • European Commission (823839, HORIZON2020)
  • Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
  • Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (741.018.201)
  • Linköpings Universitet (SNIC 2021/5-297)
  • Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse
  • Vetenskapsrådet (2021-03979, 2016-03798, Berzelius-2021-29)
  • Stockholms Universitet
  • ETH Zürich Foundation
  • Helmut Horten Stiftung
  • National Supercomputer Centre, Linköpings Universitet
  • National Institute on Aging (R56AG070096, R56AG078279)
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL144778)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35GM136255)
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-protein interaction network, AlphaFold2, interface residues, pathogenic variants, phosphorylation sites, co-regulation, protein complexes, molecular machines
MeSH terms
Humans, Mutation, Signal Transduction, Computational Biology, Protein Interaction Maps

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