2.2 | Three-dimensional protein structure
As noted earlier, the 2020 CASP round (CASP14) saw a dramatic advance in
the accuracy of computational models of single proteins, with the
accuracy of many models rivaling that of experiment (4). The few major
failures were for oligomeric proteins (for example viral coat
components) considered in isolation and some targets with very shallow
multiple sequence alignment. Agreement with experiment also tended be
lower for the few NMR targets.
For CASP15, interest centered around whether groups other than DeepMind
could approach experimental accuracy, whether new approaches would rival
AlphaFold2, and whether limitations for shallow sequence alignments
would be overcome. DeepMind did not participate in this CASP, but the
Elofsson group ran each target through the local standard installation
of Alphafold2, providing a baseline.
Figure 1 shows one of the many examples of a protein modeled to high
accuracy in this CASP.