Evolutionary-guided advanced deep-learning architecture powers mammalian GPCRome agonist predictions
G-protein-coupled receptors constitute a highly conserved superfamily that orchestrates essential signaling processes across species. Contemporary computational approaches for predicting ligand-receptor interactions are hindered by restricted receptor coverage, limited incorporation of odorant receptors, and datasets that insufficiently capture cross-species diversity. Here, we present EvOlf, an evolutionary-guided deep-learning framework that integrates odorant and non-odorant receptors through an expansive dataset comprising 105,235 experimentally validated interactions across 24 mammalian species. EvOlf leverages hierarchical self-attention, multi-resolution feature encoding, and a fusion transformer to construct biologically grounded representations of ligand-receptor interactions, achieving state-of-the-art performance. EvOlf substantially outperformed existing prediction methods across an independent test dataset. Experimental validation identified three structurally diverse allosteric co-activators of the β1‑adrenergic receptor that significantly potentiated agonist-evoked signaling in human and rat cardiomyocytes. EvOlf provides a robust and scalable platform for receptor deorphanization and ligand discovery.
Authors
- Nikhil Katyayan
- Aakash Gaur
- Sanjay Kumar Mohanty (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1375-2223)
- Saveena Solanki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1079-9349)
- Mudit Gupta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7812-1473)
- Aayushi Mittal
- Gaurav Ahuja
- Shiva Satija
- Adnan Raza
- Suvendu Kumar
- Dilraj Kaur
- Syed Yasser Ali
- Anmol Kumar Sharma
- Kunal Tiwari
Institutions
- Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IN)
- Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IN)
- Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (IN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Cell Reports
- Published
- 2026-02-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117003
- Primary Topic
- Receptor Mechanisms and Signaling
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00