Protease-inhibitor interaction predictions: Lessons on the complexity of protein-protein interactions

To link inhibitors to their target proteases on a large scale, we applied computational methods to predict inhibitory interactions between proteases and their inhibitors based on complementary data including coexpression, phylogenetic similarity, structural information, co-annotation, and colocalization, and also surveyed general protein interaction networks for potential inhibitory interactions. In testing nine predicted interactions biochemically, we validated the inhibition of kallikrein 5 by serpin B12.

Despite the use of a wide array of complementary data, we found a high false positive rate of computational predictions in biochemical follow-up. Based on a protease-specific definition of true negatives derived from the biochemical classification of proteases and inhibitors, we analyzed prediction accuracy of individual features. Thereby we identified feature-specific limitations, which also affected general protein interaction prediction methods.

Interestingly, proteases were often not coexpressed with most of their functional inhibitors, contrary to what is commonly assumed and extrapolated predominantly from cell culture experiments. Predictions of inhibitory interactions were indeed more challenging than predictions of non-proteolytic and non-inhibitory interactions. In summary, we describe a novel and well-defined but difficult protein interaction prediction task, and thereby highlight limitations of computational interaction prediction methods.