varidock 0.1.3.7

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VariDock

A modular pipeline for cross-species protein–ligand virtual screening, combining structure prediction, molecular dynamics, pocket detection, and ensemble docking into a reproducible, HPC-ready workflow.

Overview

VariDock automates the full path from protein sequence to docked binding poses:

1. Structure prediction — AlphaFold 3 co-folding with pre-computed MSA reuse across combinatorial protein–ligand screens
2. Molecular dynamics — NAMD-based simulations to generate conformational ensembles and validate predicted complexes
3. Pocket detection — DeepSurf-based identification of binding sites on MD-sampled frames
4. Virtual screening — AutoDock Vina ensemble docking across multiple receptor conformations

Each step is a composable stage with typed inputs and outputs, making it straightforward to swap tools, extend to new species, or run partial workflows.

Installation

pip install varidock

For development:

git clone https://github.com/abdollahegazy/varidock.git
cd varidock
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quick Start

from pathlib import Path
from varidock.stages import AF3InputBuilder, AF3MSAStage, AF3MSAMerger, AF3MSAMergerConfig
from varidock.runners.af3 import AF3Config
from varidock.types import ProteinSequence, Ligand

# 1. Build monomer input JSONs
builder = AF3InputBuilder(output_dir=Path("data/msa/fbox"), chain_id="F")
msa_input = builder.run(ProteinSequence(name="AT3G62980", sequence="MKVLF..."))

# 2. Run MSA (requires AF3 Singularity image + databases)
af3_cfg = AF3Config.from_config(script_args=("--norun_inference",))
msa_output = AF3MSAStage(af3_cfg).run(msa_input)

# 3. Merge monomer MSAs into a dimer + ligand input
merger = AF3MSAMerger(AF3MSAMergerConfig(output_dir=Path("data/complexes/IAC")))
merged = merger.run(
    msa_outputs=[fbox_msa, cor_msa],
    ligands=[Ligand(name="auxin", ccd="IAC", af3_sequence_id="L")],
)

Pipeline Architecture

VariDock uses a stage-based architecture where each processing step is an independent, typed unit:

ProteinSequence
      │
      ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ AF3InputBuilder  │  Build AF3 input JSON (per monomer)
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│  AF3MSAStage     │  Run MSA/template search (CPU, --norun_inference)
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│  AF3MSAMerger    │  Combine monomer MSAs + ligand into multimer JSON
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ AF3InferenceStage│  Run structure prediction (GPU, --norun_data_pipeline)
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
        CIF
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   CIFToPDB       │  Convert to PDB format
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   MD Simulation   │  NAMD molecular dynamics
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│  Pocket Detection │  DeepSurf binding site identification
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│  Ensemble Docking │  AutoDock Vina across conformations
└─────────────────┘

Stages communicate through typed dataclasses, and execution is decoupled via executors (LocalExecutor, SlurmExecutor) so the same pipeline runs on a laptop or an HPC cluster.

HPC / SLURM Support

VariDock is designed for large-scale screens on HPC clusters. The MSA stage supports sharded genetic databases for parallel search across many cores:

from varidock.runners.af3 import AF3Config, sharded_script_args

af3_cfg = AF3Config.from_config(script_args=(
    "--norun_inference",
    *sharded_script_args(jackhmmer_n_cpu=2, jackhmmer_max_shards=16),
))

Configuration

VariDock reads from a varidock.toml config file for paths to external tools:

[af3]
sif_path = "/path/to/alphafold3.sif"
model_dir = "/path/to/models"
db_dir = "/path/to/databases"
runner_script = "/path/to/run_alphafold.py"

Load with:

af3_cfg = AF3Config.from_config()

Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.10
• AlphaFold 3 (Singularity image + model parameters + genetic databases)
• NAMD (for MD simulations)
• AutoDock Vina + Meeko (for docking)
• Open Babel (for format conversions)

License

VariDock is available under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Citation

If you use VariDock in your research, please cite:

@software{varidock,
  title={VariDock: Cross-species protein-ligand virtual screening pipeline},
  url={https://github.com/abdollahegazy/varidock},
}