Week 5 HW: Protein Design Part 2
Part A: SOD1 Binder Peptide Design (From Pranam)
Part 1: Generate Binders with PepMLM
Begin by retrieving the human SOD1 sequence from UniProt (P00441) and introducing the A4V mutation.
Using the PepMLM Colab linked from the HuggingFace PepMLM-650M model card:
Generate four peptides of length 12 amino acids conditioned on the mutant SOD1 sequence.
To your generated list, add the known SOD1-binding peptide FLYRWLPSRRGG for comparison.
Record the perplexity scores that indicate PepMLM’s confidence in the binders
Part 2: Evaluate Binders with AlphaFold3
Navigate to the AlphaFold Server: alphafoldserver.com
For each peptide, submit the mutant SOD1 sequence followed by the peptide sequence as separate chains to model the protein-peptide complex.
Part 3: Evaluate Properties of Generated Peptides in the PeptiVerse
- Paste the peptide sequence.
- Paste the A4V mutant SOD1 sequence in the target field.
- Check the boxes
- Predicted binding affinity
- Solubility
- Hemolysis probability
- Net charge (pH 7)
- Molecular weight
Part 4: Generate Optimized Peptides with moPPIt

Sample 1: FAPYWPCCNPCR
Hemolysis: 0.0384 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 7.6799 | Motif: 0.6357
Sample 2: YCTDCVDGVVWE
Hemolysis: 0.0898 | Solubility: 0.9530 | Affinity: 7.3664 | Motif: 0.5257
Sample 3: TRKPHYAAFFIY
Hemolysis: 0.0115 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 6.8142 | Motif: 0.6964
Sample 4: PCKYVPHVHVCF
Hemolysis: 0.0348 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 6.7769 | Motif: 0.6278
Sample 5: GFFVKTFEIVMF
Hemolysis: 0.0313 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 6.5842 | Motif: 0.6023
Sample 6: AFVTRELVVQIW
Hemolysis: 0.0775 | Solubility: 0.9980 | Affinity: 6.4754 | Motif: 0.7743
Sample 7: HELTFARFEIQL
Hemolysis: 0.0169 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 6.3272 | Motif: 0.7435
Sample 8: QEPCEELQFNHF
Hemolysis: 0.0245 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 6.2640 | Motif: 0.6353
Sample 9: CTKVLIVKFEFK
Hemolysis: 0.0224 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 6.0939 | Motif: 0.7347
Sample 10: PSEKQCVKFHTT
Hemolysis: 0.0481 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 5.8624 | Motif: 0.7204
Sample 11: ANAPWFPPSSPH
Hemolysis: 0.0167 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 5.6936 | Motif: 0.6189
Sample 12: AFAKISNKQQQT
Hemolysis: 0.1067 | Solubility: 1.0000 | Affinity: 5.5742 | Motif: 0.7846
Part C: Final Project: L-Protein Mutants
L-Protein Engineering | Option 3: Random Mutagenesis
- Create a python function to generate random mutation combinations with at least 2 residues by using the information found in mutational analysis experiments here.
Variant 1: S35K, Q71L
Sequence: METRFPQQSQQTPASTNRRRPFKHEDYPCRRQQRKSTLYVLIFLAIFLSKFTNQLLLSLLEAVIRTVTTLLQLLT
Variant 2: F47I, L44D
Sequence: METRFPQQSQQTPASTNRRRPFKHEDYPCRRQQRSSTLYVLIFDAIILSKFTNQLLLSLLEAVIRTVTTLQQLLT
Variant 3: V63I, V67I
Sequence: METRFPQQSQQTPASTNRRRPFKHEDYPCRRQQRSSTLYVLIFLAIFLSKFTNQLLLSLLEAIIRTITTLQQLLT
Variant 4: R31K, F43P
Sequence: METRFPQQSQQTPASTNRRRPFKHEDYPCRKQQRSSTLYVLIPLAIFLSKFTNQLLLSLLEAVIRTVTTLQQLLT
Variant 5: F5N, L60C
Sequence: METRNPQQSQQTPASTNRRRPFKHEDYPCRRQQRSSTLYVLIFLAIFLSKFTNQLLLSLCEAVIRTVTTLQQLLT

