Boxed Molecular Dynamics: A Simple and General Technique for Accelerating Rare Event Kinetics and Mapping Free Energy in Large Molecular Systems

2009 ◽  
Vol 113 (52) ◽  
pp. 16603-16611 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Glowacki ◽  
Emanuele Paci ◽  
Dmitrii V. Shalashilin
2016 ◽  
Vol 195 ◽  
pp. 395-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike O'Connor ◽  
Emanuele Paci ◽  
Simon McIntosh-Smith ◽  
David R. Glowacki

The past decade has seen the development of a new class of rare event methods in which molecular configuration space is divided into a set of boundaries/interfaces, and then short trajectories are run between boundaries. For all these methods, an important concern is how to generate boundaries. In this paper, we outline an algorithm for adaptively generating boundaries along a free energy surface in multi-dimensional collective variable (CV) space, building on the boxed molecular dynamics (BXD) rare event algorithm. BXD is a simple technique for accelerating the simulation of rare events and free energy sampling which has proven useful for calculating kinetics and free energy profiles in reactive and non-reactive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations across a range of systems, in both NVT and NVE ensembles. Two key developments outlined in this paper make it possible to automate BXD, and to adaptively map free energy and kinetics in complex systems. First, we have generalized BXD to multidimensional CV space. Using strategies from rigid-body dynamics, we have derived a simple and general velocity-reflection procedure that conserves energy for arbitrary collective variable definitions in multiple dimensions, and show that it is straightforward to apply BXD to sampling in multidimensional CV space so long as the Cartesian gradients ∇CV are available. Second, we have modified BXD to undertake on-the-fly statistical analysis during a trajectory, harnessing the information content latent in the dynamics to automatically determine boundary locations. Such automation not only makes BXD considerably easier to use; it also guarantees optimal boundaries, speeding up convergence. We have tested the multidimensional adaptive BXD procedure by calculating the potential of mean force for a chemical reaction recently investigated using both experimental and computational approaches – i.e., F + CD3CN → DF + D2CN in both the gas phase and a strongly coupled explicit CD3CN solvent. The results obtained using multidimensional adaptive BXD agree well with previously published experimental and computational results, providing good evidence for its reliability.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javad Noroozi ◽  
William Smith

We use molecular dynamics free energy simulations in conjunction with quantum chemical calculations of gas phase reaction free energy to predict alkanolamines pka values. <br>


Author(s):  
Balaji Selvam ◽  
Ya-Chi Yu ◽  
Liqing Chen ◽  
Diwakar Shukla

<p>The SWEET family belongs to a class of transporters in plants that undergoes large conformational changes to facilitate transport of sugar molecules across the cell membrane. However, the structures of their functionally relevant conformational states in the transport cycle have not been reported. In this study, we have characterized the conformational dynamics and complete transport cycle of glucose in OsSWEET2b transporter using extensive molecular dynamics simulations. Using Markov state models, we estimated the free energy barrier associated with different states as well as 1 for the glucose the transport mechanism. SWEETs undergoes structural transition to outward-facing (OF), Occluded (OC) and inward-facing (IF) and strongly support alternate access transport mechanism. The glucose diffuses freely from outside to inside the cell without causing major conformational changes which means that the conformations of glucose unbound and bound snapshots are exactly same for OF, OC and IF states. We identified a network of hydrophobic core residues at the center of the transporter that restricts the glucose entry to the cytoplasmic side and act as an intracellular hydrophobic gate. The mechanistic predictions from molecular dynamics simulations are validated using site-directed mutagenesis experiments. Our simulation also revealed hourglass like intermediate states making the pore radius narrower at the center. This work provides new fundamental insights into how substrate-transporter interactions actively change the free energy landscape of the transport cycle to facilitate enhanced transport activity.</p>


2005 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 542-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
César Augusto Fernandes De Oliveira ◽  
Cristiano Ruch Werneck Guimarães ◽  
Heloisa De Mello ◽  
Aurea Echevarria ◽  
Ricardo Bicca De Alencastro

Author(s):  
Lorenzo Casbarra ◽  
Piero Procacci

AbstractWe systematically tested the Autodock4 docking program for absolute binding free energy predictions using the host-guest systems from the recent SAMPL6, SAMPL7 and SAMPL8 challenges. We found that Autodock4 behaves surprisingly well, outperforming in many instances expensive molecular dynamics or quantum chemistry techniques, with an extremely favorable benefit-cost ratio. Some interesting features of Autodock4 predictions are revealed, yielding valuable hints on the overall reliability of docking screening campaigns in drug discovery projects.


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