Antibody-SGM, a Score-Based Generative Model for Antibody Heavy-Chain Design

J Chem Inf Model. 2024 Sep 9;64(17):6745-6757. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.4c00711. Epub 2024 Aug 27.

Abstract

Traditional computational methods for antibody design involved random mutagenesis followed by energy function assessment for candidate selection. Recently, diffusion models have garnered considerable attention as cutting-edge generative models, lauded for their remarkable performance. However, these methods often focus solely on the backbone or sequence, resulting in the incomplete depiction of the overall structure and necessitating additional techniques to predict the missing component. This study presents Antibody-SGM, an innovative joint structure-sequence diffusion model that addresses the limitations of existing protein backbone generation models. Unlike previous models, Antibody-SGM successfully integrates sequence-specific attributes and functional properties into the generation process. Our methodology generates full-atom native-like antibody heavy chains by refining the generation to create valid pairs of sequences and structures, starting with random sequences and structural properties. The versatility of our method is demonstrated through various applications, including the design of full-atom antibodies, antigen-specific CDR design, antibody heavy chains optimization, validation with Alphafold3, and the identification of crucial antibody sequences and structural features. Antibody-SGM also optimizes protein function through active inpainting learning, allowing simultaneous sequence and structure optimization. These improvements demonstrate the promise of our strategy for protein engineering and significantly increase the power of protein design models.

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Antibodies / chemistry
  • Antibodies / immunology
  • Complementarity Determining Regions / chemistry
  • Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains* / chemistry
  • Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains* / immunology
  • Models, Molecular*
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Engineering

Substances

  • Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains
  • Complementarity Determining Regions
  • Antibodies