Introduction

This vignette focuses on visualization. One example plots AlphaMissense predictions on AlphaFold predicted protein structure.

Visualization makes use of CRAN packages bio3d and r3dmol. Install these (if necessary) with

pkgs <- c("bio3d", "r3dmol")
pkgs_to_install <- pkgs[!pkgs %in% rownames(installed.packages())]
if (length(pkgs_to_install))
    BiocManager::install(pkgs_to_install)

Start by loading the AlphaMissenseR library.

library(AlphaMissenseR)

Visit the summary of available AlphaMissense datasets

am_available()
#> # A tibble: 7 × 6
#>   record   key                             size cached filename            link 
#>   <chr>    <chr>                          <dbl> <lgl>  <chr>               <chr>
#> 1 10813168 gene_hg38                     253636 TRUE   AlphaMissense_gene… http…
#> 2 10813168 isoforms_hg38             1177361934 FALSE  AlphaMissense_isof… http…
#> 3 10813168 isoforms_aa_substitutions 2461351945 FALSE  AlphaMissense_isof… http…
#> 4 10813168 hg38                       642961469 TRUE   AlphaMissense_hg38… http…
#> 5 10813168 hg19                       622293310 FALSE  AlphaMissense_hg19… http…
#> 6 10813168 gene_hg19                     243943 FALSE  AlphaMissense_gene… http…
#> 7 10813168 aa_substitutions          1207278510 TRUE   AlphaMissense_aa_s… http…

This vignette uses the aa_substitutions and hg38 data resources; make sure that these have been cached locally.

am_data("aa_substitutions")
#> # Source:   table<aa_substitutions> [?? x 4]
#> # Database: DuckDB v0.10.2 [biocbuild@Linux 5.15.0-105-generic:R 4.4.0//home/biocbuild/.cache/R/BiocFileCache/b2334674f90d5_b2334674f90d5]
#>    uniprot_id protein_variant am_pathogenicity am_class  
#>    <chr>      <chr>                      <dbl> <chr>     
#>  1 A0A024R1R8 M1A                        0.467 ambiguous 
#>  2 A0A024R1R8 M1C                        0.383 ambiguous 
#>  3 A0A024R1R8 M1D                        0.827 pathogenic
#>  4 A0A024R1R8 M1E                        0.524 ambiguous 
#>  5 A0A024R1R8 M1F                        0.275 benign    
#>  6 A0A024R1R8 M1G                        0.548 ambiguous 
#>  7 A0A024R1R8 M1H                        0.552 ambiguous 
#>  8 A0A024R1R8 M1I                        0.321 benign    
#>  9 A0A024R1R8 M1K                        0.288 benign    
#> 10 A0A024R1R8 M1L                        0.175 benign    
#> # ℹ more rows

am_data("hg38")
#> # Source:   table<hg38> [?? x 10]
#> # Database: DuckDB v0.10.2 [biocbuild@Linux 5.15.0-105-generic:R 4.4.0//home/biocbuild/.cache/R/BiocFileCache/b2334674f90d5_b2334674f90d5]
#>    CHROM   POS REF   ALT   genome uniprot_id transcript_id     protein_variant
#>    <chr> <dbl> <chr> <chr> <chr>  <chr>      <chr>             <chr>          
#>  1 chr1  69094 G     T     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 V2L            
#>  2 chr1  69094 G     C     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 V2L            
#>  3 chr1  69094 G     A     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 V2M            
#>  4 chr1  69095 T     C     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 V2A            
#>  5 chr1  69095 T     A     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 V2E            
#>  6 chr1  69095 T     G     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 V2G            
#>  7 chr1  69097 A     G     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 T3A            
#>  8 chr1  69097 A     C     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 T3P            
#>  9 chr1  69097 A     T     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 T3S            
#> 10 chr1  69098 C     A     hg38   Q8NH21     ENST00000335137.4 T3N            
#> # ℹ more rows
#> # ℹ 2 more variables: am_pathogenicity <dbl>, am_class <chr>

AlphaFold protein structure

AlphaMissense predictions on pathogenicity of amino acid changes can be combined with AlphaFold (or other) predictions of protein structure.

Fast path

Figure 3F of the AlphaMissense publication visualizes mean pathogenicity for UniProt id P35557. Filter amino acid data for that identifier

P35557_aa <-
    am_data("aa_substitutions") |>
    dplyr::filter(uniprot_id == "P35557")

and visualization median pathogenicity with

af_prediction_view(P35557_aa)

The image is interactive, including rotation and zoom. The following sections explore this visualization in more detail.

UniProt identifiers

Both AlphaMissense and AlphaFold use UniProt identifiers. Find all AlphaMissense amino acid substitutions with UniProt identifiers starting with P3555; the choice of this identifier is so that results can be compared with Figure 3F of the AlphaMissense publication.

uniprot_ids <-
    am_data("aa_substitutions") |>
    dplyr::filter(uniprot_id %like% "P3555%") |>
    dplyr::distinct(uniprot_id) |>
    pull(uniprot_id)
uniprot_ids
#> [1] "P35558" "P35556" "P35557" "P35555"

The AlphaMissenseR package includes several functions that facilitate interaction with AlphaFold; these functions start with af_*(). Use af_predictions() to discover AlphaFold predictions (via the AlphaFold API) associated with UniProt identifiers.

prediction <- af_predictions(uniprot_ids)
#> * [15:56:31][info] 2 of 4 uniprot accessions not found
#>   'P35556', 'P35555'

glimpse(prediction)
#> Rows: 2
#> Columns: 23
#> $ entryId                <chr> "AF-P35558-F1", "AF-P35557-F1"
#> $ gene                   <chr> "PCK1", "GCK"
#> $ uniprotAccession       <chr> "P35558", "P35557"
#> $ uniprotId              <chr> "PCKGC_HUMAN", "HXK4_HUMAN"
#> $ uniprotDescription     <chr> "Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, cytosolic […
#> $ taxId                  <int> 9606, 9606
#> $ organismScientificName <chr> "Homo sapiens", "Homo sapiens"
#> $ uniprotStart           <int> 1, 1
#> $ uniprotEnd             <int> 622, 465
#> $ uniprotSequence        <chr> "MPPQLQNGLNLSAKVVQGSLDSLPQAVREFLENNAELCQPDHIHIC…
#> $ modelCreatedDate       <chr> "2022-06-01", "2022-06-01"
#> $ latestVersion          <int> 4, 4
#> $ allVersions            <list> [1, 2, 3, 4], [1, 2, 3, 4]
#> $ isReviewed             <lgl> TRUE, TRUE
#> $ isReferenceProteome    <lgl> TRUE, TRUE
#> $ cifUrl                 <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ bcifUrl                <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ pdbUrl                 <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ paeImageUrl            <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ paeDocUrl              <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ amAnnotationsUrl       <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ amAnnotationsHg19Url   <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…
#> $ amAnnotationsHg38Url   <chr> "https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/files/AF-P35558-F1…

Note the message indicating that some UniProt identifiers (accessions) are not found in the AlphaFold database. The query returns a tibble containing columns with information on organism and UniProt characteristics (including protein sequence) , as well as URLs for files representing three-dimensional protein structure. We will use pdbUrl.

Protein structure

Focus on a particular UniProt identifier and the PDB url.

pdb_url <-
    prediction |>
    dplyr::filter(uniprotAccession == "P35557") |>
    dplyr::pull(pdbUrl)

Cache the PDB file using BiocFileCache, and read the PDB file using bio3d.

pdb_file <- BiocFileCache::bfcrpath(rnames = basename(pdb_url), fpath = pdb_url)
pdb <- bio3d::read.pdb(pdb_file)
pdb
#> 
#>  Call:  bio3d::read.pdb(file = pdb_file)
#> 
#>    Total Models#: 1
#>      Total Atoms#: 3642,  XYZs#: 10926  Chains#: 1  (values: A)
#> 
#>      Protein Atoms#: 3642  (residues/Calpha atoms#: 465)
#>      Nucleic acid Atoms#: 0  (residues/phosphate atoms#: 0)
#> 
#>      Non-protein/nucleic Atoms#: 0  (residues: 0)
#>      Non-protein/nucleic resid values: [ none ]
#> 
#>    Protein sequence:
#>       MLDDRARMEAAKKEKVEQILAEFQLQEEDLKKVMRRMQKEMDRGLRLETHEEASVKMLPT
#>       YVRSTPEGSEVGDFLSLDLGGTNFRVMLVKVGEGEEGQWSVKTKHQMYSIPEDAMTGTAE
#>       MLFDYISECISDFLDKHQMKHKKLPLGFTFSFPVRHEDIDKGILLNWTKGFKASGAEGNN
#>       VVGLLRDAIKRRGDFEMDVVAMVNDTVATMISCYYEDHQCEVGMI...<cut>...MLGQ
#> 
#> + attr: atom, xyz, seqres, calpha, call

Visualize the protein using r3dmol, using the ‘cartoon’ style.

r3dmol::r3dmol() |>
    ## use the PDB representation
    r3dmol::m_add_model(r3dmol::m_bio3d(pdb)) |>
    ## visualize as a 'cartoon' with alpha helices and beta sheets
    r3dmol::m_set_style(style = r3dmol::m_style_cartoon(arrow = TRUE)) |>
    ## fit molecule into display area
    r3dmol::m_zoom_to()