| Summary: | Computational Protein Docking (CPD) is defined as determining the stable complex of docked proteins given information about two individual partners, called receptor and ligand. The problem is often formulated as an energy/score minimization where the decision variables are the 6 rigid body transformation variables for the ligand in addition to more variables corresponding to flexibilities in the protein structures. The scoring functions used in CPD are highly nonlinear and nonconvex with a very large number of local minima, making the optimization problem particularly challenging. Consequently, most docking procedures employ a multistage strategy of (i) Global Sampling using a coarse scoring function to identify promising areas followed by (ii) a Refinement stage using more accurate scoring functions and possibly allowing more degrees of freedom.
In the first part of this work, the problem of local optimization in the refinement stage is addressed. The goal of local optimization is to remove steric clashes between protein partners and obtain more realistic score values. The problem is formulated as optimization on the space of rigid motions of the ligand. Employing a recently introduced representation of the space of rigid motions as a manifold, a new Riemannian metric is introduced that is closely related to the Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) distance measure widely used in Protein Docking. It is argued that the new metric puts rotational and translational variables on equal footing as far local changes of RMSD is concerned. The implications and modifications for gradient-based local optimization algorithms are discussed.
In the second part, a new methodology for resampling and refinement of ligand conformations is introduced. The algorithm is a refinement method where the inputs to the algorithm are ensembles of ligand conformations and the goal is to generate new ensembles of refined conformations, closer to the native complex. The algorithm builds upon a previous work and introduces multiple new innovations: Clustering the input conformations, performing dimensionality reduction using Principle Component Analysis (PCA), underestimating the scoring function and resampling and refinement of new conformations. The performance of the algorithm on a comprehensive benchmark of protein complexes is reported.
The third part of this work focuses on using machine learning framework for addressing two specific problems in Protein Docking: (i) Constructing a machine learning model in order to predict whether a given receptor and ligand pair interact. This is of significant importance for constructing the so-called protein interaction networks, an critical step in the Drug Discovery process. The success of the algorithm is verified on a benchmark for discrimination between Biological and Crystallographic Dimers. (ii) A ranking scheme for output predictions of a protein docking server is devised. The machine learning model employs the features of the docking server predictions to produce a ranked list with the top ranked predictions having higher probability of being close to the native solution. Two state-of-the-art approaches to the ranking problem are presented and compared in detail and the implications of using the superior approach for a structural docking server is discussed.
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