Anthropic says its biology team used Claude to map the first 3D structure of a bacterial vault particle

Anthropic published a write-up, with a preprint submitted to bioRxiv, on how its life sciences team worked with Claude to determine the first 3D structure of a vault particle from prokaryotic life. Vaults are large, hollow, barrel-shaped protein shells, first described in 1986; their function is still unknown.

Anthropic says vault-like proteins from bacteria and from the viruses that infect them can assemble into complete vaults. The structure it solved comes from a bacteriophage protein it calls L05: 96 copies, about 54 by 45 nanometers, enclosing about 25% more volume than the mammalian vault. It says structures from these simpler organisms may make it easier to investigate what vaults do in human cells.

On the role of Claude, Anthropic says Claude searched a database of about 15 billion predicted proteins, designed the DNA constructs, proposed a faster isolation method that cut a purification from about three days to about 90 minutes, and ran the cryo-EM processing. It says a first structural model was ready 34 hours after processing began, and the final maps about a week later. It also says Claude made mistakes along the way, including a protocol that cost the team two weeks and a flawed early map, and that it shared its lab notes with the ML researchers who train Claude. These are Anthropic's own claims.