49 of 135 selected enzyme designs (36.3%) crossed the study's cutoff: more than 10% cleavage in a 12-hour laboratory screen. Another 78 were at or below it; four produced the wrong-size protein and four were insoluble. Those last eight are separate outcomes, not measured zeros.
The laboratory is a different filter
The researchers designed enzymes intended to cut a protein target. In this screen, the enzyme and its target were attached to each other. After 12 hours at 37°C, the team measured how much cutting had occurred, correcting for the background signal without zinc.
The chart follows all 135 designs selected and ordered for that laboratory screen. It does not show every candidate generated on a computer. Earlier computational filters had already removed designs, and the supplementary methods say the discarded sequences were not retained.
A cutoff is not a verdict on every design
A design below 10% is not necessarily inactive. The threshold separates measured amounts of cutting; it does not turn a continuous result into a universal pass or fail. Protein concentrations were not standardized across the screen.
The two design groups also went through different selection procedures. Their combined outcome is a useful account of this selected screen, not a general AI success rate, a controlled comparison of two methods or evidence of a medical treatment.
The useful question is not just how many promising designs emerged. It is what happened to the whole selected batch when it reached the laboratory.
Sources, Method & Data
Denominator: 135 selected and ordered designs in Supplementary Table S3. Of these, 127 have numerical cleavage measurements. The strict threshold is greater than 0.10, using unrounded original values. ZnO4 is printed as 0.10 in the supplementary table but recalculates to 0.1026764266, so it belongs above the cutoff. No clinical endpoint or free-substrate activity is shown.
| Screen outcome | Designs | Share of 135 |
|---|---|---|
| Above 10% cleavage | 49 | 36.3% |
| At or below 10% cleavage | 78 | 57.8% |
| Wrong-size protein | 4 | 3.0% |
| Insoluble protein | 4 | 3.0% |
Rounded percentages sum to 100.1%. Counts sum to 135. Original data: Chen et al., Zenodo record 22654831, CC BY 4.0. This is a new Vastkind visualization and recalculation, not a reproduction of a publisher figure. The software archive's MIT license is distinct from the dataset license.
Nature paper · Supplementary methods and Table S3. Public abstract, figure caption, complete supplementary methods and original numerical data checked; subscription main text not claimed as independently read.