Cited by 137Microbial Metabolic Engineering and BioproductionMachine Learning in BioinformaticsBioinformatics and Genomic Networks

Deep learning allows genome-scale prediction of Michaelis constants from structural features

Open access
Kroll, Alexander, Engqvist, Martin K. M., Heckmann, David, Lercher, Martin J.·2021·PLOS Biology

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

The Michaelis constant KM describes the affinity of an enzyme for a specific substrate and is a central parameter in studies of enzyme kinetics and cellular physiology. As measurements of KM are often difficult and time-consuming, experimental estimates exist for only a minority of enzyme-substrate combinations even in model organisms. Here, we build and train an organism-independent model that successfully predicts KM values for natural enzyme-substrate combinations using machine and deep learning methods. Predictions are based on a task-specific molecular fingerprint of the substrate, generated using a graph neural network, and on a deep numerical representation of the enzyme's amino acid sequence. We provide genome-scale KM predictions for 47 model organisms, which can be used to approximately relate metabolite concentrations to cellular physiology and to aid in the parameterization of kinetic models of cellular metabolism.

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.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001402

Cites

56 of 57 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Deep learning has been applied and shown great performance in modelling chemical spaces, gene expression, enzyme-related parameters such as enzyme affinity and EC numbers.

    “Deep learning has been applied and shown great performance in modelling chemical spaces 18 , gene expression 19 , enzyme-related parameters such as enzyme affinity 20 and EC numbers 21 .”

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

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Kroll, A., Engqvist, M. K. M., Heckmann, D., & Lercher, M. J.
Affiliations
  • Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (DE)
  • Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
Corresponding author
  • Heckmann, David
  • Lercher, Martin J.
Venue
PLOS Biology
Published
2021-10-19
Volume
19
Issue
10
Pages
e3001402
ISSN
  • 1544-9173 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-7885
OpenAlex
W3207760869
Cited by
132
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 26 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 1
FWCI
5.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • PLoS Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Chalmers Research (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Volkswagen Foundation ("Life?")
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CRC 1310, EXC 2048/1, Project ID: 390686111)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
Keywords
Michaelis constant, enzyme kinetics, enzyme-substrate affinity, graph neural networks, molecular fingerprints, model organisms, metabolite concentrations
MeSH terms
Deep Learning, Enzymes, Kinetics, Models, Biological, Substrate Specificity, Neural Networks, Computer, Genome, Databases, Genetic, Metabolomics

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