AlphaFold2 Can Predict Single-Mutation Effects
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
AlphaFold2 (AF) is a promising tool, but is it accurate enough to predict single mutation effects? Here, we report that the localized structural deformation between protein pairs differing by only 1-3 mutations-as measured by the effective strain-is correlated across 3901 experimental and AF-predicted structures. Furthermore, analysis of ∼11 000 proteins shows that the local structural change correlates with various phenotypic changes. These findings suggest that AF can predict the range and magnitude of single-mutation effects on average, and we propose a method to improve precision of AF predictions and to indicate when predictions are unreliable.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
Jumper, J., Evans, R., Pritzel, A., Green, T., Figurnov, M., Ronneberger, O., Tunyasuvunakool, K., Bates, R., Žídek, A., Potapenko, A., et al. (2021) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 · Cited by 43,764 · see citing works
ColabFold - Making protein folding accessible to all
Mirdita, M., Schütze, K., Moriwaki, Y., Heo, L., Ovchinnikov, S., & Steinegger, M. (2021) · doi:10.1101/2021.08.15.456425 · Cited by 9,391 · see citing works
A structural biology community assessment of AlphaFold2 applications
Akdel, M., Pires, D. E. V., Pardo, E. P., Jänes, J., Zalevsky, A. O., Mészáros, B., Bryant, P., Good, L. L., Laskowski, R. A., Pozzati, G., et al. (2022) · Nature Structural & Molecular Biology · doi:10.1038/s41594-022-00849-w · Cited by 675 · see citing works
Widespread macromolecular interaction perturbations in human genetic disorders
Sahni, N., Yi, S., Taipale, M., Fuxman Bass, J. I., Coulombe-Huntington, J., Yang, F., Peng, J., Weile, J., Karras, G. I., Wang, Y., et al. (2015) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.04.013 · Cited by 594 · see citing works
Local fitness landscape of the green fluorescent protein
Sarkisyan, K. S., Bolotin, D. A., Meer, M. V., Usmanova, D. R., Mishin, A. S., Sharonov, G. V., Ivankov, D. N., Bozhanova, N. G., Baranov, M. S., Soylemez, O., et al. (2016) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature17995 · Cited by 591 · see citing works
Sampling alternative conformational states of transporters and receptors with AlphaFold2
del Alamo, D., Sala, D., Mchaourab, H. S., & Meiler, J. (2022) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.75751 · Cited by 511 · see citing works
Using AlphaFold to predict the impact of single mutations on protein stability and function
Pak, M. A., Markhieva, K. A., Novikova, M. S., Petrov, D. S., Vorobyev, I. S., Maksimova, E. S., Kondrashov, F. A., & Ivankov, D. N. (2023) · PLOS One · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0282689 · Cited by 322 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Xu, Y., Liu, D., & Gong, H. (2024) · Nature Computational Science · doi:10.1038/s43588-024-00716-2 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
<scp>ESM</scp> ‐scan—A tool to guide amino acid substitutions
Totaro, M. G., Vide, U., Zausinger, R., Winkler, A., & Oberdorfer, G. (2024) · Protein Science · doi:10.1002/pro.5221 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Unifying Constraints Linking Protein Folding and Native Dynamics Decoded from AlphaFold
Zhang, Z., Ren, W., Xie, L., Zheng, Y., Guan, X., Wang, J., Li, W., & Tang, Q.-Y. (2026) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/7j2j-f8f7 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- McBride, J. M., Polev, K., Abdirasulov, A., Reinharz, V., Grzybowski, B. A., & Tlusty, T.
- Affiliations
- Institute for Basic Science (KR)
- Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Université du Québec à Montréal (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Tlusty, Tsvi
- Venue
- Physical Review Letters
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2023-11-20
- Volume
- 131
- Issue
- 21
- Pages
- 218401-218401
- ISSN
- 0031-9007 (ISSN-L)
- 1079-7114
- OpenAlex
- W4388825176
- Cited by
- 87
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 7.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Physical Review Letters (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R020-D1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Structure and Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Enzyme Structure and Function
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
- Keywords
- AlphaFold2, protein structure prediction, equivalent strain, structural deformation, phenotypic change, forecast reliability
- MeSH terms
- Mutation, Proteins, Software
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review