Modeling the structure-conditioned sequence landscape for large-scale protein design with TriFlow

Abstract

Generative models have revolutionized computational protein design, and the design of high-quality sequences given backbone structure is a critical component for success. Current state-of-the-art design pipelines utilize sequence design methods with local structural context and autoregressive generation. To improve efficiency and quality of sequence design, we developed TriFlow, a model that combines a RoseTTAFold-like three-track architecture for global structural context with discrete flow-matching for efficient few-step sequence generation. We trained TriFlow on a large dataset of interacting protein chains from Protein Data Bank and interacting domains from AlphaFold protein structure Database to enrich its knowledge of natural protein and domain interfaces. TriFlow outperforms existing sequence design methods like ProteinMPNN across diverse benchmarks, including de novo binder design, where it boosts the in silico success rate of state-of-the-art design pipelines such as BindCraft. We demonstrated this by conducting a large-scale benchmark, generating and computationally validating binders for over 500 diverse protein targets. Experimental validation on a small set of targets also suggests that the performance of TriFlow is on par with BindCraft. By leveraging the model to explore the designed sequence landscape, we discovered that we can effectively highlight functional sites, by contrasting designed sequences that reflect structure constraints with natural evolutionary profiles. As a practical demonstration of its capabilities, we applied our pipeline to systematically design specific binders against human class I cytokines, computationally optimizing for on-target affinity while minimizing off-target interactions, demonstrating that specificity also scales with inference time and computational budget. TriFlow thus provides a robust framework both for large-scale protein engineering and for exploring the fundamental principles of the structure-conditioned sequence landscape. TriFlow software and generated resources are available at https://triflow.zhoulab.io/.