A protein folding robot driven by a self-taught agent

Biosystems. 2021 Mar:201:104315. doi: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2020.104315. Epub 2020 Dec 29.

Abstract

This paper presents a computer simulation of a virtual robot that behaves as a peptide chain of the Hemagglutinin-Esterase protein (HEs) from human coronavirus. The robot can learn efficient protein folding policies by itself and then use them to solve HEs folding episodes. The proposed robotic unfolded structure inhabits a dynamic environment and is driven by a self-taught neural agent. The neural agent can read sensors and control the angles and interactions between individual amino acids. During the training phase, the agent uses reinforcement learning to explore new folding forms that conduce toward more significant rewards. The memory of the agent is implemented with neural networks. These neural networks are noise-balanced trained to satisfy the look for future conditions required by the Bellman equation. In the operating phase, the components merge into a wise up protein folding robot with look-ahead capacities, which consistently solves a section of the HEs protein.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Protein folding; Reinforcement learning; Self-taught agents.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Computer Simulation
  • Coronavirus / chemistry
  • Hemagglutinins, Viral / chemistry
  • Humans
  • Machine Learning
  • Models, Molecular
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Folding*
  • Robotics / methods*
  • Robotics / statistics & numerical data
  • Systems Analysis
  • Systems Biology
  • Viral Fusion Proteins / chemistry
  • Viral Proteins / chemistry

Substances

  • Hemagglutinins, Viral
  • Viral Fusion Proteins
  • Viral Proteins
  • hemagglutinin esterase