[PDF][PDF] Folding non-homologous proteins by coupling deep-learning contact maps with I-TASSER assembly simulations

W Zheng, C Zhang, Y Li, R Pearce, EW Bell… - Cell reports methods, 2021 - cell.com
Cell reports methods, 2021cell.com
Structure prediction for proteins lacking homologous templates in the Protein Data Bank
(PDB) remains a significant unsolved problem. We developed a protocol, CI-TASSER, to
integrate interresidue contact maps from deep neural-network learning with the cutting-edge
I-TASSER fragment assembly simulations. Large-scale benchmark tests showed that CI-
TASSER can fold more than twice the number of non-homologous proteins than the I-
TASSER, which does not use contacts. When applied to a folding experiment on 8,266 …
Summary
Structure prediction for proteins lacking homologous templates in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) remains a significant unsolved problem. We developed a protocol, C-I-TASSER, to integrate interresidue contact maps from deep neural-network learning with the cutting-edge I-TASSER fragment assembly simulations. Large-scale benchmark tests showed that C-I-TASSER can fold more than twice the number of non-homologous proteins than the I-TASSER, which does not use contacts. When applied to a folding experiment on 8,266 unsolved Pfam families, C-I-TASSER successfully folded 4,162 domain families, including 504 folds that are not found in the PDB. Furthermore, it created correct folds for 85% of proteins in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, despite the quick mutation rate of the virus and sparse sequence profiles. The results demonstrated the critical importance of coupling whole-genome and metagenome-based evolutionary information with optimal structure assembly simulations for solving the problem of non-homologous protein structure prediction.
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