Illuminating protein space with a programmable generative model.

Three billion years of evolution has produced a tremendous diversity of protein molecules1, but the full potential of proteins is likely to be much greater. Accessing this potential has been challenging for both computation and experiments because the space of possible protein molecules is much larger than the space of those likely to have functions. Here we introduce Chroma, a generative model for proteins and protein complexes that can directly sample novel protein structures and sequences, and that can be conditioned to steer the generative process towards desired properties and functions. To enable this, we introduce a diffusion process that respects the conformational statistics of polymer ensembles, an efficient neural architecture for molecular systems that enables long-range reasoning with sub-quadratic scaling, layers for efficiently synthesizing three-dimensional structures of proteins from predicted inter-residue geometries and a general low-temperature sampling algorithm for diffusion models. Chroma achieves protein design as Bayesian inference under external constraints, which can involve symmetries, substructure, shape, semantics and even natural-language prompts. The experimental characterization of 310 proteins shows that sampling from Chroma results in proteins that are highly expressed, fold and have favourable biophysical properties. The crystal structures of two designed proteins exhibit atomistic agreement with Chroma samples (a backbone root-mean-square deviation of around 1.0 Å). With this unified approach to protein design, we hope to accelerate the programming of protein matter to benefit human health, materials science and synthetic biology.

Inferring selection effects in SARS-CoV-2 with Bayesian Viral Allele Selection.

The global effort to sequence millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes has provided an unprecedented view of viral evolution. Characterizing how selection acts on SARS-CoV-2 is critical to developing effective, long-lasting vaccines and other treatments, but the scale and complexity of genomic surveillance data make rigorous analysis challenging. To meet this challenge, we develop Bayesian Viral Allele Selection (BVAS), a principled and scalable probabilistic method for inferring the genetic determinants of differential viral fitness and the relative growth rates of viral lineages, including newly emergent lineages. After demonstrating the accuracy and efficacy of our method through simulation, we apply BVAS to 6.9 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes. We identify numerous mutations that increase fitness, including previously identified mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 Spike and Nucleocapsid proteins, as well as mutations in non-structural proteins whose contribution to fitness is less well characterized. In addition, we extend our baseline model to identify mutations whose fitness exhibits strong dependence on vaccination status as well as pairwise interaction effects, i.e. epistasis. Strikingly, both these analyses point to the pivotal role played by the N501 residue in the Spike protein. Our method, which couples Bayesian variable selection with a diffusion approximation in allele frequency space, lays a foundation for identifying fitness-associated mutations under the assumption that most alleles are neutral.

Analysis of 6.4 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes identifies mutations associated with fitness.

Repeated emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants with increased fitness underscores the value of rapid detection and characterization of new lineages. We have developed PyR0, a hierarchical Bayesian multinomial logistic regression model that infers relative prevalence of all viral lineages across geographic regions, detects lineages increasing in prevalence, and identifies mutations relevant to fitness. Applying PyR0 to all publicly available SARS-CoV-2 genomes, we identify numerous substitutions that increase fitness, including previously identified spike mutations and many nonspike mutations within the nucleocapsid and nonstructural proteins. PyR0 forecasts growth of new lineages from their mutational profile, ranks the fitness of lineages as new sequences become available, and prioritizes mutations of biological and public health concern for functional characterization.

Analysis of 6.4 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes identifies mutations associated with fitness.

Repeated emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with increased fitness necessitates rapid detection and characterization of new lineages. To address this need, we developed PyR 0 , a hierarchical Bayesian multinomial logistic regression model that infers relative prevalence of all viral lineages across geographic regions, detects lineages increasing in prevalence, and identifies mutations relevant to fitness. Applying PyR 0 to all publicly available SARS-CoV-2 genomes, we identify numerous substitutions that increase fitness, including previously identified spike mutations and many non-spike mutations within the nucleocapsid and nonstructural proteins. PyR 0 forecasts growth of new lineages from their mutational profile, identifies viral lineages of concern as they emerge, and prioritizes mutations of biological and public health concern for functional characterization. ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY: A Bayesian hierarchical model of all SARS-CoV-2 viral genomes predicts lineage fitness and identifies associated mutations.