Structure Prediction Primer

AlphaFold and ESMFold-style methods predict protein structures from sequence. They are valuable for structural context, domain interpretation, and hypothesis generation.

flowchart LR
    A["Protein sequence"] --> B["Structure prediction or lookup"]
    B --> C["Confidence score"]
    C --> D["Domain-level interpretation"]
    D --> E["Follow-up hypothesis"]

Why It Matters Here

Structure confidence can help decide whether a candidate has interpretable domains or regions suitable for follow-up modeling.

Common Pitfalls

• High-confidence structure does not prove ligand binding.
• Flexible, disordered, or interface regions may be lower confidence.
• Protein-protein or peptide-target interactions require additional modeling and validation.

Project Guardrail

Structure features support prioritization but never claim direct binding without experimental evidence.