scholarly journals Protein structure prediction by AlphaFold2: are attention and symmetries all you need?

Author(s):  
Nazim Bouatta ◽  
Peter Sorger ◽  
Mohammed AlQuraishi

The functions of most proteins result from their 3D structures, but determining their structures experimentally remains a challenge, despite steady advances in crystallography, NMR and single-particle cryoEM. Computationally predicting the structure of a protein from its primary sequence has long been a grand challenge in bioinformatics, intimately connected with understanding protein chemistry and dynamics. Recent advances in deep learning, combined with the availability of genomic data for inferring co-evolutionary patterns, provide a new approach to protein structure prediction that is complementary to longstanding physics-based approaches. The outstanding performance of AlphaFold2 in the recent Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP14) experiment demonstrates the remarkable power of deep learning in structure prediction. In this perspective, we focus on the key features of AlphaFold2, including its use of (i) attention mechanisms and Transformers to capture long-range dependencies, (ii) symmetry principles to facilitate reasoning over protein structures in three dimensions and (iii) end-to-end differentiability as a unifying framework for learning from protein data. The rules of protein folding are ultimately encoded in the physical principles that underpin it; to conclude, the implications of having a powerful computational model for structure prediction that does not explicitly rely on those principles are discussed.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jie Hou

Protein structure prediction is one of the most important scientific problems in the field of bioinformatics and computational biology. The availability of protein three-dimensional (3D) structure is crucial for studying biological and cellular functions of proteins. The importance of four major sub-problems in protein structure prediction have been clearly recognized. Those include, first, protein secondary structure prediction, second, protein fold recognition, third, protein quality assessment, and fourth, multi-domain assembly. In recent years, deep learning techniques have proved to be a highly effective machine learning method, which has brought revolutionary advances in computer vision, speech recognition and bioinformatics. In this dissertation, five contributions are described. First, DNSS2, a method for protein secondary structure prediction using one-dimensional deep convolution network. Second, DeepSF, a method of applying deep convolutional network to classify protein sequence into one of thousands known folds. Third, CNNQA and DeepRank, two deep neural network approaches to systematically evaluate the quality of predicted protein structures and select the most accurate model as the final protein structure prediction. Fourth, MULTICOM, a protein structure prediction system empowered by deep learning and protein contact prediction. Finally, SAXSDOM, a data-assisted method for protein domain assembly using small-angle X-ray scattering data. All the methods are available as software tools or web servers which are freely available to the scientific community.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 5553
Author(s):  
Subash C Pakhrin ◽  
Bikash Shrestha ◽  
Badri Adhikari ◽  
Dukka B KC

Obtaining an accurate description of protein structure is a fundamental step toward understanding the underpinning of biology. Although recent advances in experimental approaches have greatly enhanced our capabilities to experimentally determine protein structures, the gap between the number of protein sequences and known protein structures is ever increasing. Computational protein structure prediction is one of the ways to fill this gap. Recently, the protein structure prediction field has witnessed a lot of advances due to Deep Learning (DL)-based approaches as evidenced by the success of AlphaFold2 in the most recent Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP14). In this article, we highlight important milestones and progresses in the field of protein structure prediction due to DL-based methods as observed in CASP experiments. We describe advances in various steps of protein structure prediction pipeline viz. protein contact map prediction, protein distogram prediction, protein real-valued distance prediction, and Quality Assessment/refinement. We also highlight some end-to-end DL-based approaches for protein structure prediction approaches. Additionally, as there have been some recent DL-based advances in protein structure determination using Cryo-Electron (Cryo-EM) microscopy based, we also highlight some of the important progress in the field. Finally, we provide an outlook and possible future research directions for DL-based approaches in the protein structure prediction arena.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 6032
Author(s):  
Donghyuk Suh ◽  
Jai Woo Lee ◽  
Sun Choi ◽  
Yoonji Lee

The new advances in deep learning methods have influenced many aspects of scientific research, including the study of the protein system. The prediction of proteins’ 3D structural components is now heavily dependent on machine learning techniques that interpret how protein sequences and their homology govern the inter-residue contacts and structural organization. Especially, methods employing deep neural networks have had a significant impact on recent CASP13 and CASP14 competition. Here, we explore the recent applications of deep learning methods in the protein structure prediction area. We also look at the potential opportunities for deep learning methods to identify unknown protein structures and functions to be discovered and help guide drug–target interactions. Although significant problems still need to be addressed, we expect these techniques in the near future to play crucial roles in protein structural bioinformatics as well as in drug discovery.


1970 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-226
Author(s):  
S. M. Minhaz Ud-Dean ◽  
Mahdi Muhammad Moosa

Protein structure prediction and evaluation is one of the major fields of computational biology. Estimation of dihedral angle can provide information about the acceptability of both theoretically predicted and experimentally determined structures. Here we report on the sequence specific dihedral angle distribution of high resolution protein structures available in PDB and have developed Sasichandran, a tool for sequence specific dihedral angle prediction and structure evaluation. This tool will allow evaluation of a protein structure in pdb format from the sequence specific distribution of Ramachandran angles. Additionally, it will allow retrieval of the most probable Ramachandran angles for a given sequence along with the sequence specific data. Key words: Torsion angle, φ-ψ distribution, sequence specific ramachandran plot, Ramasekharan, protein structure appraisal D.O.I. 10.3329/ptcb.v19i2.5439 Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 19(2): 217-226, 2009 (December)


Author(s):  
Arun G. Ingale

To predict the structure of protein from a primary amino acid sequence is computationally difficult. An investigation of the methods and algorithms used to predict protein structure and a thorough knowledge of the function and structure of proteins are critical for the advancement of biology and the life sciences as well as the development of better drugs, higher-yield crops, and even synthetic bio-fuels. To that end, this chapter sheds light on the methods used for protein structure prediction. This chapter covers the applications of modeled protein structures and unravels the relationship between pure sequence information and three-dimensional structure, which continues to be one of the greatest challenges in molecular biology. With this resource, it presents an all-encompassing examination of the problems, methods, tools, servers, databases, and applications of protein structure prediction, giving unique insight into the future applications of the modeled protein structures. In this chapter, current protein structure prediction methods are reviewed for a milieu on structure prediction, the prediction of structural fundamentals, tertiary structure prediction, and functional imminent. The basic ideas and advances of these directions are discussed in detail.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document