Contested result
ESM-1v and MSA Transformer: Livesey and Marsh 2025, Genome Biology 26:104 (Europe PMC full text XML) reverses the order
- Low severity
- Not yet reviewed
- Ordering reversal
- Different tasks across studies
Livesey and Marsh 2025, Genome Biology 26:104 (Europe PMC full text XML) ranks ESM-1v above MSA Transformer in 5 of 5 comparisons; other studies rank MSA Transformer above ESM-1v in 16 of 19.
An automatic lead, not a finding of error. The results below are shown as published, everywhere on the site, until a reviewer decides otherwise.
Which studies agree
ProteinGym AMFR assay-level Spearman… ranks MSA Transformer above ESM-1v in 16 of its 19 comparisons and ESM-1v higher in 3. Livesey and Marsh 2025 ranks ESM-1v above MSA Transformer in all 5 comparisons that are not ties (1 is a tie).
- Rank MSA Transformer higher (1): ProteinGym AMFR assay-level Spearman…
- Rank ESM-1v higher (1): Livesey and Marsh 2025 (disagrees)
- Mixed (0): none
Each paper sits where at least two thirds of its comparisons point; Mixed means neither model reaches two thirds. The larger, outlined dot is the paper that disagrees.
| Paper | Role | Ranks MSA Transformer higher | Ranks ESM-1v higher | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Livesey and Marsh 2025, Genome Biology 26:104 (Europe PMC full text XML) and 1 more record · DOI | Disagrees | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| ProteinGym AMFR assay-level Spearman comparison and 4 more records · Repository | Agrees | 16 | 3 | 0 |
Comparisons in Livesey and Marsh 2025 (6)
| Protocol | Dataset | Metric | MSA Transformer | ESM-1v | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Livesey and Marsh 2025 DMS benchmark: pairwise |Spearman| win rate, all 36 DMS sets | Livesey and Marsh 2025 human DMS benchmark set (36 proteins) | Pairwise win rate (average pairwise win rate against all other VEPs, |Spearman| with DMS on shared variants, 36 human DMS sets), percent | 75.9 | 81.5 | ESM-1v |
| Livesey and Marsh 2025 DMS benchmark: pairwise |Spearman| win rate, all 36 DMS sets | Livesey and Marsh 2025 human DMS benchmark set (36 proteins) | Pairwise win rate (average pairwise win rate against the five top-ranked VEPs (column top_5_winrate; the five are not listed in the table), |Spearman| with DMS on shared variants, 36 human DMS sets), percent | 24.4 | 28.1 | ESM-1v |
| Livesey and Marsh 2025 DMS benchmark: pairwise |Spearman| win rate, direct assays only | Livesey and Marsh 2025 human DMS benchmark set (36 proteins) | Pairwise win rate (average pairwise win rate against all other VEPs, |Spearman| with DMS on shared variants, direct DMS assays only), percent | 77.7 | 78.4 | Tie |
| Livesey and Marsh 2025 DMS benchmark: pairwise |Spearman| win rate, indirect assays only | Livesey and Marsh 2025 human DMS benchmark set (36 proteins) | Pairwise win rate (average pairwise win rate against all other VEPs, |Spearman| with DMS on shared variants, indirect DMS assays only), percent | 74.7 | 83.6 | ESM-1v |
| Livesey and Marsh 2025 DMS benchmark: pairwise |Spearman| win rate, SNV-accessible substitutions only | Livesey and Marsh 2025 human DMS benchmark set (36 proteins) | Pairwise win rate (average pairwise win rate against all other VEPs, |Spearman| with DMS on shared variants, SNV-accessible substitutions only), percent | 79.2 | 81.5 | ESM-1v |
| Livesey and Marsh 2025 DMS benchmark: pairwise |Spearman| win rate, SNV-accessible substitutions with gaps filled | Livesey and Marsh 2025 human DMS benchmark set (36 proteins) | Pairwise win rate (average pairwise win rate against all other VEPs, |Spearman| with DMS, SNV-accessible substitutions, missing predictions filled with the VEP's most benign score), percent | 72 | 81.8 | ESM-1v |
Comparisons in ProteinGym AMFR assay-level Spearman… (19)
| Protocol | Dataset | Metric | MSA Transformer | ESM-1v | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Activity assays: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.473 | 0.42 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Binding assays: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.329 | 0.32 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Expression assays: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.446 | 0.429 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, High MSA depth proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.479 | 0.495 | ESM-1v |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Human proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.439 | 0.458 | ESM-1v |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Low MSA depth proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.375 | 0.316 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Medium MSA depth proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.456 | 0.409 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Organismal fitness assays: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.419 | 0.386 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Other eukaryote proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.516 | 0.464 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Prokaryote proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.446 | 0.413 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Stability assays: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.492 | 0.477 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, Virus proteins: mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.421 | 0.294 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, mean over selection types of the per-type mean over proteins of assay-level Spearman (all 217 assays)), unitless | 0.432 | 0.407 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, variants with 1 substitution: mean over protein and selection-type groups of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.427 | 0.403 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, variants with 2 substitutions: mean over protein and selection-type groups of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.221 | 0.215 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, variants with 3 substitutions: mean over protein and selection-type groups of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.365 | 0.177 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, variants with 4 substitutions: mean over protein and selection-type groups of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.369 | 0.153 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym v1.3 zero-shot DMS substitutions | ProteinGym DMS substitution assays at commit 144fe22 (217 assays) | Spearman (ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions, variants with 5 or more substitutions: mean over protein and selection-type groups of assay-level Spearman), unitless | 0.397 | 0.218 | MSA Transformer |
| ProteinGym AMFR official zero-shot Spearman snapshot | ProteinGym AMFR 4G3O official snapshot cohort | Spearman, unitless | 0.24 | 0.423 | ESM-1v |
What disagrees
- Other studies
- rank MSA Transformer above ESM-1v in 16 of 19 comparisons
- This study
- ranks ESM-1v above MSA Transformer in 5 of 5 comparisons
- Compared
- ESM-1v, MSA Transformer
- Study that disagrees
- Livesey and Marsh 2025, Genome Biology 26:104 (Europe PMC full text XML), Livesey and Marsh 2025, Supplementary Material 2 (Tables S1-S8)
- Other studies
- ProteinGym AMFR assay-level Spearman comparison, ProteinGym clinical supervised substitutions AUC summary at commit 144fe22, ProteinGym clinical zero-shot indels AUC summary at commit 144fe22, ProteinGym clinical zero-shot substitutions AUC summary at commit 144fe22, ProteinGym zero-shot DMS substitutions Spearman summary at commit 144fe22
- Rule
- Ordering reversal; different tasks across studies
- Model identity
- Matched across studies partly through links not yet reviewed
The compared numbers
Each value links to its result record and source. Compare values within one protocol; the rule compares rankings, not raw values across protocols.
Follow-up
Current state: Not yet reviewed.
No one has reviewed this finding yet.
How to help resolve this
If you know why these studies disagree, for example a different population, metric or preprocessing step, or you have a corrected value, tell us through the contribution form. A reviewer checks every submission against its source before anything changes, and the step is added to the follow-up above.
Finding discrepancy-1239b574960b9d46 · All contested results · How findings are made and followed up