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One of the greatest mysteries in biology has been solved using artificial intelligence, say researchers cited by the BBC.
Determining how a protein fits into a single three-dimensional shape has been a mystery to scientists for more than half a century.
Now the artificial intelligence lab in London DeepMind has largely found the answer, say organizers of a science competition.
Their program determined the shape of proteins with a level of precision comparable to expensive and time-consuming laboratory methods, they say.
The discovery could speed up research for several diseases, including COVID-19.
The achievement is “truly remarkable,” says Dr. Andriy Kryshtafovych of the University of California, one of the competition’s jurors.
The ability to investigate the shape of proteins quickly and accurately has the potential to revolutionize science, he added.
Proteins are present in all creatures and play a central role in the chemical processes essential for life. Made up of chains of amino acids, they fold into an infinite number of shapes into elaborate shapes that hold the key to how they perform their vital functions.
Many diseases are related to the role of proteins in catalyzing chemical reactions.
“Even small rearrangements of these vital molecules can have catastrophic effects on our health, so one of the most effective ways to understand disease and find new treatments is to study the proteins involved,” said Dr. John Moult of the University. . from Maryland, USA, Chair of the Scientific Judges Panel
“There are tens of thousands of human proteins and billions in other species, including bacteria and viruses, but establishing the shape of a single protein requires expensive equipment and can take years,” he added.
Knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of a protein is important for drug development and for understanding human diseases, such as cancer, dementia, and infectious diseases.
An example is COVID-19. The scientists studied how the spike protein on the surface of the Sars-CoV-2 virus interacts with receptors on human cells.
“Understanding how a protein sequence folds in three dimensions is one of the fundamental questions in biology. The whole way a protein works depends on its three-dimensional structure, and the function of the protein is relevant to everything related to health and disease, ”said Professor Andrew Martin of University College London.
By knowing the three-dimensional structures of proteins, scientists can help develop drugs and cure health problems, whether they are infections or inherited diseases.
Dame Janet Thornton from the European Institute of Bioinformatics EMBL says that “how proteins fold to create unique three-dimensional structures” is one of the greatest mysteries in biology.
“A better understanding of the structures of proteins and the ability to predict their shape using a computer means a better understanding of life, evolution and, of course, human health and disease,” he explained.
Now, scientists will check how accurate the method used by DeepMind is and how well it works at a very detailed level.
There is another knowledge gap, including how various proteins work together and how proteins interact with other molecules, such as DNA and RNA.
“Now that the problem has been largely solved for individual proteins, the way is open for the development of new methods to determine the shape of protein complexes, collections of proteins that work together to form much of the tools of life, “said Kryshtafovych. .
Editing: Monica Bonea
