Anthropic uses Claude to resolve the structure of prokaryotic vault particles
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Anthropic's biology research team says it used Claude to resolve the first 3D structure of vault particles in prokaryotic cells: the particle consists of 96 copies of the L05 protein and has a mass of about 9.5 megadaltons. The related preprint has been submitted to bioRxiv, and the link is not yet live. The team says only the cryo-EM analysis required computing power beyond what general academic institutions have available, and to save time they used hundreds of GPUs in parallel. Currently these vaults have only been prepared in E. coli, and it has not yet been tested whether they can form in natural host bacteria and phages; the team says it will soon release the structure and more data.
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- Anthropic ResearchFeaturedInvestigating vault particles with Claude
Anthropic's biology research lab reports the first 3D structure of a vault particle from a prokaryotic cell—a bacteriophage-derived vault built from 96 copies of a single protein, L05, solved by cryo-EM. Under researchers' direction, Claude searched protein databases, designed DNA constructs, optimized a size-exclusion chromatography isolation method that cut purification from about three days to roughly 90 minutes, and processed microscopy data, yielding a first structural model in 34 hours. The team also engineered altered and enlarged vault variants, and notes the work demonstrates using Claude across every step of fundamental biology research.
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