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AMBER Force Field (amber + force_field)
Selected AbstractsDevelopment of polyphosphate parameters for use with the AMBER force fieldJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 9 2003Kristin L. Meagher Abstract Accurate force fields are essential for reproducing the conformational and dynamic behavior of condensed-phase systems. The popular AMBER force field has parameters for monophosphates, but they do not extend well to polyphorylated molecules such as ADP and ATP. This work presents parameters for the partial charges, atom types, bond angles, and torsions in simple polyphosphorylated compounds. The parameters are based on molecular orbital calculations of methyldiphosphate and methyltriphosphate at the RHF/6-31+G* level. The new parameters were fit to the entire potential energy surface (not just minima) with an RMSD of 0.62 kcal/mol. This is exceptional agreement and a significant improvement over the current parameters that produce a potential surface with an RMSD of 7.8 kcal/mol to that of the ab initio calculations. Testing has shown that the parameters are transferable and capable of reproducing the gas-phase conformations of inorganic diphosphate and triphosphate. Also, the parameters are an improvement over existing parameters in the condensed phase as shown by minimizations of ATP bound in several proteins. These parameters are intended for use with the existing AMBER 94/99 force field, and they will permit users to apply AMBER to a wider variety of important enzymatic systems. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 24: 1016,1025, 2003 [source] A new molecular mechanics force field for the oxidized form of blue copper proteinsJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 7 2002Peter Comba Abstract A molecular mechanics force field for blue copper proteins has been developed, based on a rigid potential energy surface scan of the CuII/His/His/Cys/Met chromophore, using DFT (B3LYP) calculations and the AMBER force field for the protein backbone. The strain,energy-minimized structures of the model chromophore alone are in excellent agreement with the DFT-optimized structure, and those of the entire set of cupredoxins (five structures are considered) are, within the experimental error limits, in good agreement with the single crystal structural data. However, the structural variation in the computed structures is much smaller than those in the experimental structures. It is shown that, due to the large error limits in the experimental data, a validation of the force field with experimental structural data is impossible because, within the error limits, all experimental structures considered are virtually identical. A validation on the basis of spectroscopic data and their correlation with experimental and computed structural data is proposed, and, as a first example, the correlation of intensity ratios of the charge transfer transitions with a specific distortion mode is presented. The quality of the correlation, using the computed structures, is higher than that with the X-ray structures, and this indicates that the computed structures are meaningful. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 23: 697,705, 2002 [source] Study of the conformational profile of the norbornane analogues of phenylalanineJOURNAL OF PEPTIDE SCIENCE, Issue 6 2002Arnau Cordomí Abstract The conformational profile of the eight stereoisomeric 2-amino-3-phenylnorbornane-2-carboxylic acids (2-amino-3-phenylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptane-2-carboxylic acids) has been assessed by computational methods. These molecules constitute a series of four enantiomeric pairs that can be considered as rigid analogues of either L - or D -phenylalanine. The conformational space of their N -acetyl methylamide derivatives has been explored within the molecular mechanics framework, using the parm94 set of parameters of the AMBER force field. Local minimum energy conformations have been further investigated at the ab initio level by means of the Hartree-Fock and second order Moller-Plesset perturbation energy calculations using a 6,31G(d) basis set. The results of the present work suggest that the bulky norbornane structure induces two kinds of conformational constraints on the residues. On one hand, those of a steric nature directly imposed by the bicycle on the peptide backbone and, on the other hand, those that limit the orientations attainable by the phenyl ring which, in turn, reduces further the flexibility of the peptide backbone. A comparative analysis of the conformational profile of the phenylnorbornane amino acids with that of the norbornane amino acids devoid of the ,-phenyl substituent suggests that the norbornane system hampers the residue to adopt extended conformations in favour of C7-like structures. However, the bicycle itself does not impart a clear preference for any of the two possible C7 minima. It is the aromatic side chain, which is forced to adopt an almost eclipsed orientation, that breaks this symmetry introducing a marked preference for a single region of the (,, ,) conformational space in each of the phenylalanine norbornane analogues investigated. Copyright © 2002 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Molecular Modeling and Receptor-Dependent (RD) 3D-QSAR Approach to a Set of Antituberculosis DerivativesMOLECULAR INFORMATICS, Issue 11-12 2009Fernanda, Kerly, Mesquita Pasqualoto Abstract In this study, receptor-dependent (RD) 3D-QSAR models were built for a set of thirty-seven isoniazid derivatives bound to the enoyl-acp reductase from M. tuberculosis, called InhA (PDB entry code 1zid). Ligand-receptor (L-R) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations [500,000 steps; the step size was 0.001,ps (1,fs)] were carried out at 310,K (biological assay temperature). The hypothesized active conformations resulting from a previously reported receptor-independent (IR) 4D-QSAR analysis were used as the molecular geometries of each ligand in this structure-based L-R binding research. The dependent variable is the reported MIC values against M. tuberculosis var. bovis. The independent variables (descriptors) are energy terms of a modified first-generation AMBER force field combined with a hydration shell aqueous solvation model. Genetic function approximation (GFA) formalism and partial least squares (PLS) regression were employed as the fitting functions to develop 3D-QSAR models. The bound ligand solvation energy, the sum of electrostatic and hydrogen bonding energies of the unbound ligand, the bending energy of the unbound ligand, the electrostatic intermolecular L-R energy, and the change in hydrogen bonding energy upon binding were found as important energy contributions to the binding process. The 3D-QSAR model at 310,K has good internal and external predictability and may be regarded as representative of the binding process of ligands to InhA. [source] Synthesis and NMR solution structure of an ,-helical hairpin stapled with two disulfide bridgesPROTEIN SCIENCE, Issue 5 2000Philippe Barthe Abstract Helical coiled-coils and bundles are some of the most common structural motifs found in proteins. Design and synthesis of ,-helical motifs may provide interesting scaffolds that can be useful as host structures to display functional sites, thus allowing the engineering of novel functional miniproteins. We have synthesized a 38-amino acid peptide, ,2p8, encompassing the ,-helical hairpin present in the structure of p8MTCP1, as an ,-helical scaffold particularly promising for its stability and permissiveness of sequence mutations. The three-dimensional structure of this peptide has been solved using homonuclear two-dimensional NMR techniques at 600 MHz. After sequence specific assignment, a total of 285 distance and 29 dihedral restraints were collected. The solution structure of ,2p8 is presented as a set of 30 DIANA structures, further refined by restrained molecular dynamics, using simulated annealing protocol with the AMBER force field. The RMSD values for the backbone and all heavy atoms are 0.65 ± 0.25 and 1.51 ± 0.21 Ĺ, respectively. Excised from its protein context, the ,-hairpin keeps its native structure: an ,-helical coiled-coil, similar to that found in superhelical structures, with two helices spanning residues 4-16 and 25,36, and linked by a short loop. This motif is stabilized by two interhelical disulfide bridges and several hydrophobic interactions at the helix interface, leaving most of its solvent-exposed surface available for mutation. This ,-helical hairpin, easily amenable to synthetic chemistry and biological expression system, may represent a stable and versatile scaffold to display new functional sites and peptide libraries. [source] Vibrations-determined properties of green fluorescent proteinBIOPOLYMERS, Issue 3 2005Veera Krasnenko Abstract The physicochemical characteristics of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), including the thermodynamic properties (entropy, enthalpy, Gibbs' free energy, heat capacity), normal mode vibrations, and atomic fluctuations, were investigated. The Gaussian 03 computational chemistry program was employed for normal mode analysis using the AMBER force field. The thermodynamic parameters and atomic fluctuations were then calculated from the vibrational eigenvalues (frequencies) and eigenvectors. The regions of highest rigidity were shown to be the ,-sheet barrel with the central ,-helix, which bears the chromophore. The most flexible parts of the GFP molecule were the outlying loops that cover the top and bottom of the ,-barrel. This way, the balance between rigidity and flexibility is maintained, which is the optimal relationship for protein stability in terms of Gibbs' free energy. This dual-schemed structure satisfies the requirements for GFP function. In this sense, the structure of GFP resembles a nanoscale drum: a stiff cylinder with flexible vibrating end(s). © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 78: 140,146, 2005 This article was originally published online as an accepted preprint. The "Published Online" date corresponds to the preprint version. You can request a copy of the preprint by emailing the Biopolymers editorial office at biopolymers@wiley.com [source] Crystal structure prediction of flexible molecules using parallel genetic algorithms with a standard force fieldJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 13 2009Seonah Kim Abstract This article describes the application of our distributed computing framework for crystal structure prediction (CSP) the modified genetic algorithms for crystal and cluster prediction (MGAC), to predict the crystal structure of flexible molecules using the general Amber force field (GAFF) and the CHARMM program. The MGAC distributed computing framework includes a series of tightly integrated computer programs for generating the molecule's force field, sampling crystal structures using a distributed parallel genetic algorithm and local energy minimization of the structures followed by the classifying, sorting, and archiving of the most relevant structures. Our results indicate that the method can consistently find the experimentally known crystal structures of flexible molecules, but the number of missing structures and poor ranking observed in some crystals show the need for further improvement of the potential. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2009 [source] Solution, solid phase and computational structures of apicidin and its backbone-reduced analogsJOURNAL OF PEPTIDE SCIENCE, Issue 6 2006Michael Kranz Abstract The recently isolated broad-spectrum antiparasitic apicidin (1) is one of the few naturally occurring cyclic tetrapeptides (CTP). Depending on the solvent, the backbone of 1 exhibits two ,-turns (in CH2Cl2) or a ,-turn (in DMSO), differing solely in the rotation of the plane of one of the amide bonds. In the X-ray crystal structure, the peptidic COs and NHs are on opposite sides of the backbone plane, giving rise to infinite stacks of cyclotetrapeptides connected by three intermolecular hydrogen bonds between the backbones. Conformational searches (Amber force field) on a truncated model system of 1 confirm all three backbone conformations to be low-energy states. The previously synthesized analogs of 1 containing a reduced amide bond exhibit the same backbone conformation as 1 in DMSO, which is confirmed further by the X-ray crystal structure of a model system of the desoxy analogs of 1. This similarity helps in explaining why the desoxy analogs retain some of the antiprotozoal activities of apicidin. The backbone-reduction approach designed to facilitate the cyclization step of the acyclic precursors of the CTPs seems to retain the conformational preferences of the parent peptide backbone. Copyright © 2005 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||