Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39528677›Full record

ArticleNature methods2025

EvoAI enables extreme compression and reconstruction of the protein sequence space.

Ziyuan Ma, Wenjie Li, Yunhao Shen, Yunxin Xu, Gengjiang Liu, Jiamin Chang, Zeju Li, Hong Qin, Boxue Tian, Haipeng Gong and 4 more

Abstract read
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In one paragraph

Article in Nature methods, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

14 authors.

Ziyuan Ma *School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Wenjie Li *School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Yunhao Shen *School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Yunxin Xu *School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9981-2097
Gengjiang LiuSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Jiamin ChangSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Zeju LiSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Hong QinSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Boxue TianSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5830-0669
Haipeng GongSchool of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5532-1640
David R LiuMerkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9943-7557
B W ThuronyiDepartment of Chemistry, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0821-3791
Christopher A VoigtSynthetic Biology Center, Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0844-4776
Shuyi ZhangSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. shuyizhang@tsinghua.edu.cn.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8500-5836

Funding

Integrating Chemistry and Evolution to Illuminate Biology and Enable Novel TherapeuticsR35GM118062 · NIGMS · HARVARD UNIVERSITY · PI LIU, DAVID R · 2016 to 2025
$6.4M
Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology | Department of S and T for Social Development (Department of S&T for Social Development) 2023YFA0915601DH | National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) R01 EB022376/EB031172National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China) 32171416National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China) U22A20552NIGMS NIH HHS R35 GM118062
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Designing proteins with improved functions requires a deep understanding of how sequence and function are related, a vast space that is hard to explore. The ability to efficiently compress this space by identifying functionally important features is extremely valuable. Here we establish a method called EvoScan to comprehensively segment and scan the high-fitness sequence space to obtain anchor points that capture its essential features, especially in high dimensions. Our approach is compatible with any biomolecular function that can be coupled to a transcriptional output. We then develop deep learning and large language models to accurately reconstruct the space from these anchors, allowing computational prediction of novel, highly fit sequences without prior homology-derived or structural information. We apply this hybrid experimental-computational method, which we call EvoAI, to a repressor protein and find that only 82 anchors are sufficient to compress the high-fitness sequence space with a compression ratio of 10

Indexed as

Computational BiologyProteinsSequence Analysis, ProteinAlgorithmsAmino Acid SequenceDeep LearningRepressor ProteinsProteinsRepressor Proteins

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.