Skills

Alphafold Database Fetch And Analyze

Retrieve and analyze AlphaFold predicted structures for a protein.

Install

npx skills add google-deepmind/science-skills --skill alphafold-database-fetch-and-analyze -g -a claude-code -y
Category
Engineering
Updated
12d ago
License
Apache-2.0
Context cost
Lightabout 1,086 tokens
Runs scripts
Yes, review before use

What it does

Retrieve and analyze AlphaFold predicted structures for a protein. Use when the user provides a specific UniProt Accession ID and wants structural confidence metrics (pLDDT), domain boundary analysis, or disorder assessment. Do not use if the user only has a protein name, gene name, or amino acid sequence, ask for a UniProt ID first.

AlphaFold Database: Fetch and Analyze

Prerequisites

  1. uv: Read the uv skill and follow its Setup instructions to ensure uv is installed and on PATH.
  2. User Notification: If .licenses/alphafold_database_fetch_and_analyze_LICENSE.txt does not already exist in the workspace root directory then (1) prominently notify the user to check the terms at https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/, then (2) create the file recording the notification text and timestamp.

Overview

Downloads AlphaFold predicted structures (mmCIF) and Predicted Aligned Error (PAE) matrices from the AlphaFold Database for a given UniProt ID, then performs automated heuristic analysis on structural confidence (pLDDT), intrinsically disordered regions, rigid domain boundaries, and inter-domain flexibility.

Do NOT use when:

  • The user only has a protein name, gene name, or amino acid sequence (no UniProt ID), ask them to look up the ID on UniProt.
  • The user wants to search for structural homologs (use Foldseek).
  • The user wants to run AlphaFold predictions on a custom sequence.
  • The user needs experimental PDB structures (use RCSB PDB).

Core Rules

  • Use the Wrapper: ALWAYS execute the provided helper scripts to query the database rather than accessing the database directly. The scripts automatically enforce the required rate limit gracefully.
  • Do not attempt to calculate domain boundaries or assess structural disorder yourself; always rely on the output provided by the script.
  • If this skill is used, ensure this is mentioned in the output.

Utility Scripts

1. Fetch Structure Files

Downloads the .cif structure file, _predicted_aligned_error.json, and API metadata JSON (-metadata.json) for a UniProt ID. Handles fragment fallback for very large proteins.

Examples:

Read the whole SKILL.md on GitHub

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