AlphaFold for gene structure annotation
Date: 19 November 2026 @ 09:00 - 17:00
Webinar overview. The Rigden group uses AF and other protein structural bioinformatics tools to address diverse challenges, specialising in the translation of AF for novel purposes in neighbouring areas of biology. In joint work, co-led by Prof Andy Jones, we explored whether AF could help select the correct gene structure model, using original and manually curated pairs from two fungi and an apicoplast. We found that where two alternative gene models led to AF predictions that differed in a structured domain, structure-derived scores strongly favoured the human-curated version. We further found that the structure-based signals were complementary to sequence domain analysis. Unsurprisingly, the AF approach was not helpful for gene structure uncertainty relating to potentially disordered protein regions, highlighting the need for further research. We explored faster tools as alternatives to AF3 and found that Protenix-mini retained the same discriminatory capacity. Since publication we have further explored scoring of complete proteomes and have built a NextFlow pipeline to facilitate adoption of the approach.
Keywords: AlphaFold Database
Venue: ,
Organizer: European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI)
Event types:
- Workshops and courses
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