Modelling of Large Protein Complexes

However, predicting protein complexes with more than a handful of chains is still unfeasible, as the accuracy rapidly decreases with the number of chains and the protein size is limited by the memory on a GPU. Nevertheless, it might be possible to predict the structure of large complexes starting from predictions of subcomponents.

Here, we take a graph traversal approach to assemble 175 protein complexes with 10-30 chains using predictions of subcomponents. We compute paths through a complex graph constructed of subcomponents using Monte Carlo Tree Search and assemble these in a stepwise fashion. Using subcomponents predicted from all possible trimeric interactions, 91 complexes (52%) are assembled to completion.