Examining structure prediction models

This tutorial shows you how to view information about our structure prediction models, ESMFold and AlphaFold2. We recommend using ESMFold for single-chain sequences, and AlphaFold2 for multi-chain sequences.

Viewing the models

Access a list of the available folding models:

session.fold.list_models()

[alphafold2, esmfold]

ESMFold

View more details of the fold function:

esmfoldmodel = session.fold.get_model('esmfold')
esmfoldmodel.fold?

esmfoldmodel.metadata

ModelMetadata(model_id='esmfold', description=ModelDescription(citation_title='Evolutionary-scale prediction of atomic level protein structure with a language model', doi='10.1126/science.ade2574', summary='esmfold_v1 model with 690M parameters, running on top of esm2_t36_3B_UR50D with 3B parameters.'), max_sequence_length=1024, dimension=-1, output_types=['fold'], input_tokens=['A', 'R', 'N', 'D', 'C', 'Q', 'E', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'L', 'K', 'M', 'F', 'P', 'S', 'T', 'W', 'Y', 'V', ':'], output_tokens=None, token_descriptions=[[TokenInfo(id=0, token='A', primary=True, description='Alanine')], [TokenInfo(id=1, token='R', primary=True, description='Arginine')], [TokenInfo(id=2, token='N', primary=True, description='Asparagine')], [TokenInfo(id=3, token='D', primary=True, description='Aspartic acid')], [TokenInfo(id=4, token='C', primary=True, description='Cysteine')], [TokenInfo(id=5, token='Q', primary=True, description='Glutamine')], [TokenInfo(id=6, token='E', primary=True, description='Glutamic acid')], [TokenInfo(id=7, token='G', primary=True, description='Glycine')], [TokenInfo(id=8, token='H', primary=True, description='Histidine')], [TokenInfo(id=9, token='I', primary=True, description='Isoleucine')], [TokenInfo(id=10, token='L', primary=True, description='Leucine')], [TokenInfo(id=11, token='K', primary=True, description='Lysine')], [TokenInfo(id=12, token='M', primary=True, description='Methionine')], [TokenInfo(id=13, token='F', primary=True, description='Phenylalanine')], [TokenInfo(id=14, token='P', primary=True, description='Proline')], [TokenInfo(id=15, token='S', primary=True, description='Serine')], [TokenInfo(id=16, token='T', primary=True, description='Threonine')], [TokenInfo(id=17, token='W', primary=True, description='Tryptophan')], [TokenInfo(id=18, token='Y', primary=True, description='Tyrosine')], [TokenInfo(id=19, token='V', primary=True, description='Valine')], [TokenInfo(id=20, token=':', primary=False, description='Chain token, used for polymers')]])

AlphaFold2

View details of AlphaFold2:

afmodel = session.fold.get_model('alphafold2')
afmodel.fold?

afmodel.metadata

ModelMetadata(model_id='alphafold2', description=ModelDescription(citation_title='Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold.', doi='10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2', summary='alphafold2 model.'), max_sequence_length=2048, dimension=-1, output_types=['fold'], input_tokens=['A', 'R', 'N', 'D', 'C', 'Q', 'E', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'L', 'K', 'M', 'F', 'P', 'S', 'T', 'W', 'Y', 'V', ':'], output_tokens=None, token_descriptions=[[TokenInfo(id=0, token='A', primary=True, description='Alanine')], [TokenInfo(id=1, token='R', primary=True, description='Arginine')], [TokenInfo(id=2, token='N', primary=True, description='Asparagine')], [TokenInfo(id=3, token='D', primary=True, description='Aspartic acid')], [TokenInfo(id=4, token='C', primary=True, description='Cysteine')], [TokenInfo(id=5, token='Q', primary=True, description='Glutamine')], [TokenInfo(id=6, token='E', primary=True, description='Glutamic acid')], [TokenInfo(id=7, token='G', primary=True, description='Glycine')], [TokenInfo(id=8, token='H', primary=True, description='Histidine')], [TokenInfo(id=9, token='I', primary=True, description='Isoleucine')], [TokenInfo(id=10, token='L', primary=True, description='Leucine')], [TokenInfo(id=11, token='K', primary=True, description='Lysine')], [TokenInfo(id=12, token='M', primary=True, description='Methionine')], [TokenInfo(id=13, token='F', primary=True, description='Phenylalanine')], [TokenInfo(id=14, token='P', primary=True, description='Proline')], [TokenInfo(id=15, token='S', primary=True, description='Serine')], [TokenInfo(id=16, token='T', primary=True, description='Threonine')], [TokenInfo(id=17, token='W', primary=True, description='Tryptophan')], [TokenInfo(id=18, token='Y', primary=True, description='Tyrosine')], [TokenInfo(id=19, token='V', primary=True, description='Valine')], [TokenInfo(id=20, token=':', primary=False, description='Chain token, used for polymers')]])

Next steps

Visualize the predicted structure of your sequence of interest using one of our structure prediction models. See Using ESMFold and Using AlphaFold2 for instructions.