DeepECA: an end-to-end learning framework for protein contact prediction from a multiple sequence alignment.

Journal: BMC bioinformatics
Published Date:

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Recently developed methods of protein contact prediction, a crucially important step for protein structure prediction, depend heavily on deep neural networks (DNNs) and multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) of target proteins. Protein sequences are accumulating to an increasing degree such that abundant sequences to construct an MSA of a target protein are readily obtainable. Nevertheless, many cases present different ends of the number of sequences that can be included in an MSA used for contact prediction. The abundant sequences might degrade prediction results, but opportunities remain for a limited number of sequences to construct an MSA. To resolve these persistent issues, we strove to develop a novel framework using DNNs in an end-to-end manner for contact prediction.

Authors

  • Hiroyuki Fukuda
    Gastroenterological Center, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57 Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 232-0024, Japan.
  • Kentaro Tomii
    Artificial Intelligence Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 2-4-7 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo, 135-0064, Japan. k-tomii@aist.go.jp.