JZ

Protein Secondary Structure Prediction

Hybrid convolutional–recurrent sequence model

03

The network alternates local extraction and global context

Model

ArchitectureParallel convolutions capture motifs at multiple local scales. Bidirectional recurrent blocks then propagate information across the sequence, while concatenation creates explicit skip paths.

3.45m-parameter documented model

Convolution → recurrence → skip → repeat

  • 1Embedding: 128-dimensional learned representation.
  • 2Local features: parallel Conv1D branches with kernel widths 3 and 5.
  • 3Global features: a 200-unit bidirectional GRU.
  • 4Refinement: two Conv1D(1)–BiGRU blocks with a skip connection from the first recurrent layer.
  • 5Classification: 256- and 128-unit dense layers followed by a nine-way time-distributed softmax.
TensorFlow graph of the final protein secondary-structure model
3bidirectional recurrent layers
4one-dimensional convolutions
3dense/output layers
Layer groupOutput shapeParametersRole
Embedding + parallel convolutions(512, 384)134,144Learn tokens and local motifs
Bidirectional 1(512, 400)702,000First global context pass
Conv1D 3 + Bidirectional 2(512, 400)1,233,700Refine concatenated local/global features
Conv1D 4 + Bidirectional 3(512, 400)1,241,700Second refinement with skip connection
Dense + time-distributed output(512, 9)136,713Per-residue classification
Total—3,448,257Documented architecture