19 research outputs found
Computation of high-order virial coefficients in high-dimensional hard-sphere fluids by Mayer sampling
<div><p>The Mayer sampling method was used to compute the virial coefficients of high-dimensional hard-sphere fluids. The first 64 virial coefficients for dimensions 12 < <i>D</i> ā©½ 100 were obtained to high precision, and several lower dimensional virial coefficients were computed. The radii of convergence of the virial series in 13, 15, 17 and 19 dimensions agreed well with the analytical results from the PercusāYevick closure.</p></div
Sequence Affects the Cyclization of DNA Minicircles
Understanding how the sequence of
a DNA molecule affects its dynamic
properties is a central problem affecting biochemistry and biotechnology.
The process of cyclizing short DNA, as a critical step in molecular
cloning, lacks a comprehensive picture of the kinetic process containing
sequence information. We have elucidated this process by using coarse-grained
simulations, enhanced sampling methods, and recent theoretical advances.
We are able to identify the types and positions of structural defects
during the looping process at a base-pair level. Correlations along
a DNA molecule dictate critical sequence positions that can affect
the looping rate. Structural defects change the bending elasticity
of the DNA molecule from a harmonic to subharmonic potential with
respect to bending angles. We explore the subelastic chain as a possible
model in loop formation kinetics. A sequence-dependent model is developed
to qualitatively predict the relative loop formation time as a function
of DNA sequence
Examining the Assumptions Underlying Continuum-Solvent Models
Continuum-solvent
models (CSMs) have successfully predicted many
quantities, including the solvation-free energies (Ī<i>G</i>) of small molecules, but they have not consistently succeeded
at reproducing experimental binding free energies (ĪĪ<i>G</i>), especially for proteināprotein complexes. Several
CSMs break Ī<i>G</i> into the free energy (Ī<i>G</i><sub>vdw</sub>) of inserting an uncharged molecule into
solution and the free energy (Ī<i>G</i><sub>el</sub>) gained from charging. Some further divide Ī<i>G</i><sub>vdw</sub> into the free energy (Ī<i>G</i><sub>rep</sub>) of inserting a nearly hard cavity into solution and the
free energy (Ī<i>G</i><sub>att</sub>) gained from
turning on dispersive interactions between the solute and solvent.
We show that for 9 proteināprotein complexes neither Ī<i>G</i><sub>rep</sub> nor Ī<i>G</i><sub>vdw</sub> was linear in the solvent-accessible area <i>A</i>, as
assumed in many CSMs, and the corresponding components of ĪĪ<i>G</i> were not linear in changes in <i>A</i>. We show
that linear response theory (LRT) yielded good estimates of Ī<i>G</i><sub>att</sub> and ĪĪ<i>G</i><sub>att</sub>, but estimates of ĪĪ<i>G</i><sub>att</sub> obtained from either the initial or final configurations
of the solvent were not consistent with those from LRT. The LRT estimates
of Ī<i>G</i><sub>el</sub> differed by more than 100
kcal/mol from the explicit solvent modelās (ESMās) predictions,
and its estimates of the corresponding component (ĪĪ<i>G</i><sub>el</sub>) of ĪĪ<i>G</i> differed
by more than 10 kcal/mol. Finally, the PoissonāBoltzmann equation
produced estimates of Ī<i>G</i><sub>el</sub> that
were correlated with those from the ESM, but its estimates of ĪĪ<i>G</i><sub>el</sub> were much less so. These findings may help
explain why many CSMs have not been consistently successful at predicting
ĪĪ<i>G</i> for many complexes, including proteināprotein
complexes
SoluteāSolvent Energetics Based on Proximal Distribution Functions
We
consider the hydration structure and thermodynamic energetics
of solutes in aqueous solution. On the basis of the dominant local
correlation between the solvent and the chemical nature of the solute
atoms, proximal distribution functions (pDF) can be used to quantitatively
estimate the hydration pattern of the macromolecules. We extended
this technique to study the soluteāsolvent energetics including
the van der Waals terms representing excluded volume and tested the
method with butane and propanol. Our results indicate that the pDF-reconstruction
algorithm can reproduce van der Waals soluteāsolvent interaction
energies to useful kilocalorie per mole accuracy. We subsequently
computed polyalanineāwater interaction energies for a variety
of conformers, which also showed agreement with the simulated values
Effects of Conformational Constraint on Peptide Solubility Limits
Liquidāliquid phase separation of proteins preferentially
involves intrinsically disordered proteins or disordered regions.
Understanding the solution chemistry of these phase separations is
key to learning how to quantify and manipulate systems that involve
such processes. Here, we investigate the effect of cyclization on
the liquidāliquid phase separation of short polyglycine peptides.
We simulated separate aqueous systems of supersaturated cyclic and
linear GGGGG and observed spontaneous liquidāliquid phase separation
in each of the solutions. The cyclic GGGGG phase separates less robustly
than linear GGGGG and has a higher aqueous solubility, even though
linear GGGGG has a more favorable single molecule solvation free energy.
The versatile and abundant interpeptide contacts formed by the linear
GGGGG stabilize the condensed droplet phase, driving the phase separation
in this system. In particular, we find that van der Waals close contact
interactions are enriched in the droplet phase as opposed to electrostatic
interactions. An analysis of the change in backbone conformational
entropy that accompanies the phase transition revealed that cyclic
peptides lose significantly less entropy in this process as expected.
However, we find that the enhanced interaction enthalpy of linear
GGGGG in the droplet phase is enough to compensate for a larger decrease
in conformational entropy
Twist-Induced Defects of the PāSSP7 Genome Revealed by Modeling the Cryo-EM Density
We
consider the consequences of assuming that DNA inside of phages
can be approximated as a strongly nonlinear persistence length polymer.
Recent cryo-EM experiments find a hole in the density map of P-SSP7
phage, located in the DNA segment filling the portal channel of the
phage. We use experimentally derived structural constraints with coarse-grained
simulation techniques to consider contrasting model interpretations
of reconstructed density in the portal channel. The coarse-grained
DNA models used are designed to capture the effects of torsional strain
and electrostatic environment. Our simulation results are consistent
with the interpretation that the vacancy or hole in the experimental
density map is due to DNA strain leading to strand separation. We
further demonstrate that a moderate negative twisting strain is able
to account for the strand separation. This effect of nonlinear persistence
length may be important in other aspects of phage DNA packing
A Cavity Corrected 3D-RISM Functional for Accurate Solvation Free Energies
We show that an Ng
bridge function modified version of the three-dimensional
reference interaction site model (3D-RISM-NgB) solvation free energy
method can accurately predict the hydration free energy (HFE) of a
set of 504 organic molecules. To achieve this, a single unique constant
parameter was adjusted to the computed HFE of single atom Lennard-Jones
solutes. It is shown that 3D-RISM is relatively accurate at predicting
the electrostatic component of the HFE without correction but requires
a modification of the nonpolar contribution that originates in the
formation of the cavity created by the solute in water. We use a free
energy functional with the Ng scaling of the direct correlation function
[Ng, K. C. <i>J. Chem. Phys.</i> <b>1974</b>, <i>61</i>, 2680]. This produces a rapid, reliable small molecule
HFE calculation for applications in drug design
Nonpolar Solvation Free Energy from Proximal Distribution Functions
Using precomputed near neighbor or
proximal distribution functions
(pDFs) that approximate solvent density about atoms in a chemically
bonded context one can estimate the solvation structures around complex
solutes and the corresponding soluteāsolvent energetics. In
this contribution, we extend this technique to calculate the solvation
free energies (Ī<i>G</i>) of a variety of solutes.
In particular we use pDFs computed for small peptide molecules to
estimate Ī<i>G</i> for larger peptide systems. We
separately compute the non polar (Ī<i>G</i><sub>vdW</sub>) and electrostatic (Ī<i>G</i><sub>elec</sub>) components
of the underlying potential model. Here we show how the former can
be estimated by thermodynamic integration using pDF-reconstructed
soluteāsolvent interaction energy. The electrostatic component
can be approximated with Linear Response theory as half of the electrostatic
soluteāsolvent interaction energy. We test the method by calculating
the solvation free energies of butane, propanol, polyalanine, and
polyglycine and by comparing with traditional free energy simulations.
Results indicate that the pDF-reconstruction algorithm approximately
reproduces Ī<i>G</i><sub>vdW</sub> calculated by benchmark
free energy simulations to within ā¼ kcal/mol accuracy. The
use of transferable pDFs for each solute atom allows for a rapid estimation
of Ī<i>G</i> for arbitrary molecular systems
Conditional Solvation Thermodynamics of Isoleucine in Model Peptides and the Limitations of the Group-Transfer Model
The
hydration thermodynamics of the amino acid X relative to the
reference G (glycine) or the hydration thermodynamics of a small-molecule
analog of the side chain of X is often used to model the contribution
of X to protein stability and solution thermodynamics. We consider
the reasons for successes and limitations of this approach by calculating
and comparing the conditional excess free energy, enthalpy, and entropy
of hydration of the isoleucine side chain in zwitterionic isoleucine,
in extended penta-peptides, and in helical deca-peptides. Butane in
gauche conformation serves as a small-molecule analog for the isoleucine
side chain. Parsing the hydrophobic and hydrophilic contributions
to hydration for the side chain shows that both of these aspects of
hydration are context-sensitive. Furthermore, analyzing the soluteāsolvent
interaction contribution to the conditional excess enthalpy of the
side chain shows that what is nominally considered a property of the
side chain includes entirely nonobvious contributions of the background.
The context-sensitivity of hydrophobic and hydrophilic hydration and
the conflation of background contributions with energetics attributed
to the side chain limit the ability of a single scaling factor, such
as the fractional solvent exposure of the group in the protein, to
map the component energetic contributions of the model-compound data
to their value in the protein. But ignoring the origin of cancellations
in the underlying components the group-transfer model may appear to
provide a reasonable estimate of the free energy for a given error
tolerance
Intramolecular Interactions Overcome Hydration to Drive the Collapse Transition of Gly<sub>15</sub>
Simulations
and experiments show oligo-glycines, polypeptides lacking
any side chains, can collapse in water. We assess the hydration thermodynamics
of this collapse by calculating the hydration free energy at each
of the end points of the reaction coordinate, here taken as the end-to-end
distance (<i>r</i>) in the chain. To examine the role of
the various conformations for a given <i>r</i>, we study
the conditional distribution, <i>P</i>(<i>R</i><sub>g</sub>|<i>r</i>), of the radius of gyration for a
given value of <i>r</i>. The free energy change versus <i>R</i><sub>g</sub>, ā<i>k</i><sub>B</sub><i>T</i> ln <i>P</i>(<i>R</i><sub>g</sub>|<i>r</i>), is found to vary more gently compared to the corresponding
variation in the excess hydration free energy. Using this observation
within a multistate generalization of the potential distribution theorem,
we calculate a tight upper bound for the hydration free energy of
the peptide for a given <i>r</i>. On this basis, we find
that peptide hydration greatly favors the expanded state of the chain,
despite primitive hydrophobic effects favoring chain collapse. The
net free energy of collapse is seen to be a delicate balance between
opposing intrapeptide and hydration effects, with intrapeptide contributions
favoring collapse