An effective all-atom potential for proteins

We describe and test an implicit solvent all-atom potential for simulations of protein folding and aggregation. The potential is developed through studies of structural and thermodynamic properties of 17 peptides with diverse secondary structure. Results obtained using the final form of the potential are presented for all these peptides. The same model, with unchanged parameters, is furthermore applied to a heterodimeric coiled-coil system, a mixed alpha/beta protein and a three-helix-bundle protein, with very good results. The computational efficiency of the potential makes it possible to investigate the free-energy landscape of these 49--67-residue systems with high statistical accuracy, using only modest computational resources by today's standards

Formation and Growth of Oligomers: A Monte Carlo Study of an Amyloid Tau Fragment

Small oligomers formed early in the process of amyloid fibril formation may be the major toxic species in Alzheimer's disease. We investigate the early stages of amyloid aggregation for the tau fragment AcPHF6 (Ac-VQIVYK-NH2) using an implicit solvent all-atom model and extensive Monte Carlo simulations of 12, 24, and 36 chains. A variety of small metastable aggregates form and dissolve until an aggregate of a critical size and conformation arises. However, the stable oligomers, which are β-sheet-rich and feature many hydrophobic contacts, are not always growth-ready. The simulations indicate instead that these supercritical oligomers spend a lengthy period in equilibrium in which considerable reorganization takes place accompanied by exchange of chains with the solution. Growth competence of the stable oligomers correlates with the alignment of the strands in the β-sheets. The larger aggregates seen in our simulations are all composed of two twisted β-sheets, packed against each other with hydrophobic side chains at the sheet–sheet interface. These β-sandwiches show similarities with the proposed steric zipper structure for PHF6 fibrils but have a mixed parallel/antiparallel β-strand organization as opposed to the parallel organization found in experiments on fibrils. Interestingly, we find that the fraction of parallel β-sheet structure increases with aggregate size. We speculate that the reorganization of the β-sheets into parallel ones is an important rate-limiting step in the formation of PHF6 fibrils

Accelerating atomic-level protein simulations by flat-histogram techniques

Flat-histogram techniques provide a powerful approach to the simulation of first-order-like phase transitions and are potentially very useful for protein studies. Here, we test this approach by implicit solvent all-atom Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of peptide aggregation, for a 7-residue fragment (GIIFNEQ) of the Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase 1 protein (SOD1). In simulations with 8 chains, we observe two distinct aggregated/non-aggregated phases. At the midpoint temperature, these phases coexist, separated by a free-energy barrier of height 2.7 k(B)T. We show that this system can be successfully studied by carefully implemented flat-histogram techniques. The frequency of barrier crossing, which is low in conventional canonical simulations, can be increased by turning to a two-step procedure based on the Wang-Landau and multicanonical algorithms

Distinct phases of free a-synuclein - A Monte Carlo study

The α-synuclein protein (αS), implicated in Parkinson's disease, shows conformational versatility. It aggregates into β-sheet-rich fibrils, occurs in helical membrane-bound forms, is disordered as a free monomer, and has recently been suggested to have a folded helical tetramer as its main physiological form. Here, we use implicit solvent all-atom Monte Carlo methods to explore the conformational ensemble sampled by the free αS monomer. We analyze secondary structure propensities, size, and topological properties and compare with existing experimental data. Our study suggests that free αS has two distinct phases. One phase has the expected disordered character. The other phase also shows large conformational variability. However, in this phase, the β-strand content is substantial, and the backbone fold shows statistical similarities with that in αS fibrils. Presence of this phase is consistent with data from low-temperature experiments. Conversion of disordered αS to this fibril-like form requires the crossing of a rather large apparent free-energy barrier

Peptide Folding in Cellular Environments: A Monte Carlo and Markov Modeling Approach

Steric interactions with surrounding macromolecules tend to favor the compact native state of a globular protein over its unfolded state. However, in experiments conducted in cells and concentrated protein solutions, both stabilization and destabilization of proteins have been observed, compared to dilute-solution conditions. Therefore, in order to understand the effects of surrounding macromolecules on protein properties such as stability, there is a need for computational modeling beyond the level of hard-sphere crowders. Here, we discuss some recent exploratory studies of peptide folding in the presence of explicit protein crowders, carried out by us using an all-atom Monte Carlo-based approach along with an implicit solvent force field. For interpreting the simulation data, time-lagged independent component analysis and Markov state modeling are used