Learning a peptide-protein binding affinity predictor with kernel ridge regression

We propose a specialized string kernel for small bio-molecules, peptides and pseudo-sequences of binding interfaces. The kernel incorporates physico-chemical properties of amino acids and elegantly generalize eight kernels, such as the Oligo, the Weighted Degree, the Blended Spectrum, and the Radial Basis Function. We provide a low complexity dynamic programming algorithm for the exact computation of the kernel and a linear time algorithm for it's approximation. Combined with kernel ridge regression and SupCK, a novel binding pocket kernel, the proposed kernel yields biologically relevant and good prediction accuracy on the PepX database. For the first time, a machine learning predictor is capable of accurately predicting the binding affinity of any peptide to any protein. The method was also applied to both single-target and pan-specific Major Histocompatibility Complex class II benchmark datasets and three Quantitative Structure Affinity Model benchmark datasets. On all benchmarks, our method significantly (p-value < 0.057) outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods at predicting peptide-protein binding affinities. The proposed approach is flexible and can be applied to predict any quantitative biological activity. The method should be of value to a large segment of the research community with the potential to accelerate peptide-based drug and vaccine development.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 5 table

Algorithmes d'apprentissage automatique pour la conception de composés pharmaceutiques et de vaccins

La découverte de composés pharmaceutiques est actuellement trop longue et trop coûteuse, et le taux d’échec, trop élevé. Les bases de données biochimiques et génomiques ne cessent de grossir et il est maintenant impraticable d’interpréter ces données. Un changement radical est nécessaire ; certaines étapes de ce processus doivent être automatisées. Les peptides jouent un rôle important dans le système immunitaire et dans la signalisation cellulaire. Leurs propriétés favorables en font des candidats de choix pour initier la conception de nouveaux médicaments et assister la production de nouveaux vaccins. De plus, les techniques de synthèse modernes permettent de rapidement synthétiser ces molécules à faible coût. Les algorithmes d’apprentissage statistique sont particulièrement bien adaptés pour apprendre de façon automatisée des modèles, possiblement biochimiques, à partir des données existantes. Ces méthodes et les peptides offrent donc une solution de choix aux défis auxquels fait face la recherche pharmaceutique. Nous proposons un noyau permettant l’apprentissage de modèles statistiques de phénomènes biochimiques impliquant des peptides. Celui-ci permet, entre autres, l’apprentissage d’un modèle universel pouvant raisonnablement quantifier l’énergie de liaison entre toute séquence peptidique et tout site de liaison d’une protéine cristallisée. De plus, il unifie la théorie de plusieurs noyaux existants tout en conservant une faible complexité algorithmique. Ce noyau s’avère particulièrement adapté pour quantifier l’interaction entre les antigènes et les complexes majeurs d’histocompatibilité. Nous proposons un outil pour prédire les peptides qui survivront au processus de présentation antigénique. Cet outil a gagné une compétition internationale et aura plusieurs applications en immunologie, dont la conception de vaccins. Ultimement, un peptide doit maximiser l’interaction avec une protéine cible ou maximiser la bioactivité chez l’hôte. Nous formalisons ce problème comme un problème de prédiction de structures. Puis, nous proposons un algorithme exploitant les plus longs chemins dans un graphe pour déterminer les peptides maximisant la bioactivité prédite par un modèle préalablement appris. Nous validons cette nouvelle approche en laboratoire par la découverte de peptides antimicrobiens. Finalement, nous fournissons des garanties de performance de type PAC-Bayes pour deux algorithmes de prédiction de structure dont un est nouveau.The discovery of pharmaceutical compounds is currently too time-consuming, too expensive, and the failure rate is too high. Biochemical and genomic databases continue to grow and it is now impracticable to interpret these data. A radical change is needed; some steps in this process must be automated. Peptides are molecules that play an important role in the immune system and in cell signaling. Their favorable properties make them prime candidates for initiating the design of new drugs and assist in the design of vaccines. In addition, modern synthesis techniques can quickly generate these molecules at low cost. Statistical learning algorithms are well suited to manage large amount of data and to learn models in an automated fashion. These methods and peptides thus offer a solution of choice to the challenges facing pharmaceutical research. We propose a kernel for learning statistical models of biochemical phenomena involving peptides. This allows, among other things, to learn a universal model that can reasonably quantify the binding energy between any peptide sequence and any binding site of a protein. In addition, it unifies the theory of many existing string kernels while maintaining a low computational complexity. This kernel is particularly suitable for quantifying the interaction between antigens and proteins of the major histocompatibility complex. We provide a tool to predict peptides that are likely to be processed by the antigen presentation pathway. This tool has won an international competition and has several applications in immunology, including vaccine design. Ultimately, a peptide should maximize the interaction with a target protein or maximize bioactivity in the host. We formalize this problem as a structured prediction problem. Then, we propose an algorithm exploiting the longest paths in a graph to identify peptides maximizing the predicted bioactivity of a previously learned model. We validate this new approach in the laboratory with the discovery of new antimicrobial peptides. Finally, we provide PAC-Bayes bound for two structured prediction algorithms, one of which is new

Machine learning-guided directed evolution for protein engineering

Machine learning (ML)-guided directed evolution is a new paradigm for biological design that enables optimization of complex functions. ML methods use data to predict how sequence maps to function without requiring a detailed model of the underlying physics or biological pathways. To demonstrate ML-guided directed evolution, we introduce the steps required to build ML sequence-function models and use them to guide engineering, making recommendations at each stage. This review covers basic concepts relevant to using ML for protein engineering as well as the current literature and applications of this new engineering paradigm. ML methods accelerate directed evolution by learning from information contained in all measured variants and using that information to select sequences that are likely to be improved. We then provide two case studies that demonstrate the ML-guided directed evolution process. We also look to future opportunities where ML will enable discovery of new protein functions and uncover the relationship between protein sequence and function.Comment: Made significant revisions to focus on aspects most relevant to applying machine learning to speed up directed evolutio

Current Mathematical Methods Used in QSAR/QSPR Studies

This paper gives an overview of the mathematical methods currently used in quantitative structure-activity/property relationship (QASR/QSPR) studies. Recently, the mathematical methods applied to the regression of QASR/QSPR models are developing very fast, and new methods, such as Gene Expression Programming (GEP), Project Pursuit Regression (PPR) and Local Lazy Regression (LLR) have appeared on the QASR/QSPR stage. At the same time, the earlier methods, including Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), Partial Least Squares (PLS), Neural Networks (NN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and so on, are being upgraded to improve their performance in QASR/QSPR studies. These new and upgraded methods and algorithms are described in detail, and their advantages and disadvantages are evaluated and discussed, to show their application potential in QASR/QSPR studies in the future

Machine learning approaches for epitope prediction

The identification and characterization of epitopes in antigenic sequences is critical for understanding disease pathogenesis, for identifying potential autoantigens, and for designing vaccines and immune-based cancer therapies. As the number of pathogen genomes fully or partially sequenced is rapidly increasing, experimental methods for epitope mapping would be prohibitive in terms of time and expenses. Therefore, computational methods for reliably identifying potential vaccine candidates (i.e., epitopes that invoke strong response from both T-cells and B-cells) are highly desirable. Machine learning offers one of the most cost-effective and widely used approaches to developing epitope prediction tools. In the last few years, several advances in machine learning research have emerged. We utilize recent advances in machine learning research to provide epitope prediction tools with improved predictive performance. First, we introduce two methods, BCPred and FBCPred, for predicting linear B-cell epitopes and flexible length linear B-cell epitopes, respectively, using string kernel based support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. Second, we introduce three scoring matrix methods and show that they are highly competitive with a broad class of machine learning methods, including SVM, in predicting major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) binding peptides. Finally, we formulate the problems of qualitatively and quantitatively predicting flexible length major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II) peptides as multiple instance learning and multiple instance regression problems, respectively. Based on this formulation, we introduce MHCMIR, a novel method for predicting MHC-II binding affinity using multiple instance regression. The development of reliable epitope prediction tools is not feasible in the absence of high quality data sets. Unfortunately, most of the existing epitope benchmark data sets are comprised of epitope sequences that share high degree of similarity with other peptide sequences in the same data set. We demonstrate the pitfalls of these commonly used data sets for evaluating the performance of machine learning approaches to epitope prediction. Finally, we propose a similarity reduction procedure that is more stringent than currently used similarity reduction methods

Characterizing protein-ligand binding using atomistic simulation and machine learning: Application to drug resistance in HIV-1 protease

Over the past several decades, atomistic simulations of biomolecules, whether carried out using molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo techniques, have provided detailed insights into their function. Comparing the results of such simulations for a few closely related systems has guided our understanding of the mechanisms by which changes like ligand binding or mutation can alter function. The general problem of detecting and interpreting such mechanisms from simulations of many related systems, however, remains a challenge. This problem is addressed here by applying supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques to a variety of thermodynamic observables extracted from molecular dynamics simulations of different systems. As an important test case, these methods are applied to understanding the evasion by HIV-1 protease of darunavir, a potent inhibitor to which resistance can develop via the simultaneous mutation of multiple amino acids. Complex mutational patterns have been observed among resistant strains, presenting a challenge to developing a mechanistic picture of resistance in the protease. In order to dissect these patterns and gain mechanistic insight on the role of specific mutations, molecular dynamics simulations were carried out on a collection of HIV-1 protease variants, chosen to include highly resistant strains and susceptible controls, in complex with darunavir. Using a machine learning approach that takes advantage of the hierarchical nature in the relationships among sequence, structure and function, an integrative analysis of these trajectories reveals key details of the resistance mechanism, including changes in protein structure, hydrogen bonding and protein-ligand contacts