Back

De novo design of RNA pseudoknots with deep learning

Townley, J.; Kladwang, W.; Baker, D.; Blair, H. M.; Choe, C.; El Nesr, G.; Favor, A.; Fisker, E.; Haack, D. B.; He, S.; Hingey, J.; Huang, R.; Huang, P.-S.; Joshi, C. K.; Karagianes, T. G.; Kubaney, A.; Lio, P.; Mancino, A.; Romano, J.; Rudolfs, B.; Spellmon, N.; Toor, N.; Wu, V.; Yu, Z.; Eterna players, ; Das, R.

2026-05-22 biophysics
10.64898/2026.05.21.726960 bioRxiv
Show abstract

RNA design has been hindered by the limited accuracy of 3D structure prediction. Here, we show that intricate RNA structures can be generated with current deep learning tools through accurate de novo design of pseudoknot secondary structures. In an Eterna competition involving 57 pseudoknots, generative AI methods matched experienced human designers in solving most blind challenges, evaluated by single-nucleotide-resolution chemical mapping, compensatory mutagenesis, and cryogenic electron microscopy. Unexpectedly, AI-generated molecules with accurate secondary structures formed well-ordered 3D folds stabilized by noncanonical tertiary interactions not modeled during design. Success was guided by a RNet foundation model trained on prior chemical mapping data, suggesting that some difficult RNA design tasks may be tractable without first solving RNA 3D structure prediction.

Matching journals

The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.