MP2D: Constrained Monte Carlo Tree-Guided Diffusion for Multi-Objective Protein Sequence Design

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kong, Zitai, Dong, Yifan, Wu, Yixuan, Liang, Zhaokang, Wu, Jian, Xu, Hongxia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Kong, Zitai
Dong, Yifan
Wu, Yixuan
Liang, Zhaokang
Wu, Jian
Xu, Hongxia
author_facet Kong, Zitai
Dong, Yifan
Wu, Yixuan
Liang, Zhaokang
Wu, Jian
Xu, Hongxia
contents Designing functional protein sequences that satisfy multiple desired properties is a core research focus of protein engineering. Prior methods struggle with inability or inefficiency when dealing with numerous, often conflicting, properties. We propose Multi-Property Protein Diffusion (MP2D), a unified framework for multi-objective protein sequence optimization that integrates conditional discrete diffusion with constrained MCTS and global iterative refinement. MP2D formulates diffusion denoising as a constrained sequential decision-making process and employs MCTS to explore diverse denoising trajectories guided by Pareto-based rewards. A global iterative refinement strategy further enables repeated remasking and re-optimization of candidate sequences, while a dynamic Pareto constraint prevents candidate bloat and maintains balanced trade-offs across objectives. We evaluate MP2D on two challenging multi-objective protein design tasks: antimicrobial peptide and protein binder optimization, involving four to five conflicting properties. Experimental results demonstrate that MP2D consistently outperforms existing multi-objective baselines, achieving robust and balanced improvements across all objectives without retraining generative models. These results highlight MP2D as a practical and scalable solution for multi-objective functional protein design.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_05829
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MP2D: Constrained Monte Carlo Tree-Guided Diffusion for Multi-Objective Protein Sequence Design
Kong, Zitai
Dong, Yifan
Wu, Yixuan
Liang, Zhaokang
Wu, Jian
Xu, Hongxia
Biomolecules
Designing functional protein sequences that satisfy multiple desired properties is a core research focus of protein engineering. Prior methods struggle with inability or inefficiency when dealing with numerous, often conflicting, properties. We propose Multi-Property Protein Diffusion (MP2D), a unified framework for multi-objective protein sequence optimization that integrates conditional discrete diffusion with constrained MCTS and global iterative refinement. MP2D formulates diffusion denoising as a constrained sequential decision-making process and employs MCTS to explore diverse denoising trajectories guided by Pareto-based rewards. A global iterative refinement strategy further enables repeated remasking and re-optimization of candidate sequences, while a dynamic Pareto constraint prevents candidate bloat and maintains balanced trade-offs across objectives. We evaluate MP2D on two challenging multi-objective protein design tasks: antimicrobial peptide and protein binder optimization, involving four to five conflicting properties. Experimental results demonstrate that MP2D consistently outperforms existing multi-objective baselines, achieving robust and balanced improvements across all objectives without retraining generative models. These results highlight MP2D as a practical and scalable solution for multi-objective functional protein design.
title MP2D: Constrained Monte Carlo Tree-Guided Diffusion for Multi-Objective Protein Sequence Design
topic Biomolecules
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.05829