Charged Small Molecule Binding to Membranes in MD Simulations Evaluated against NMR Experiments

Interactions of charged molecules with biomembranes regulate many of their biological activities, but their binding affinities to lipid bilayers are difficult to measure experimentally and model theoretically. Classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have the potential to capture the complex interactions determining how charged biomolecules interact with membranes, but systematic overbinding of sodium and calcium cations in standard MD simulations raises the question of how accurately force fields capture the interactions between lipid membranes and charged biomolecules. Here, we evaluate the binding of positively charged small molecules, etidocaine, and tetraphenylphosphonium to a phosphatidylcholine (POPC) lipid bilayer using the changes in lipid head-group order parameters. We observed that these molecules behave oppositely to calcium and sodium ions when binding to membranes: (i) their binding affinities are not overestimated by standard force field parameters, (ii) implicit inclusion of electronic polarizability increases their binding affinity, and (iii) they penetrate into the hydrophobic membrane core. Our results can be explained by distinct binding mechanisms of charged small molecules with hydrophobic moieties and monoatomic ions. The binding of the former is driven by hydrophobic effects, while the latter has direct electrostatic interactions with lipids. In addition to elucidating how different kinds of charged biomolecules bind to membranes, we deliver tools for further development of MD simulation parameters and methodology.Peer reviewe

Accurate Simulations of Lipid Monolayers Require a Water Model with Correct Surface Tension

Lipid monolayers provide our lungs and eyes their functionality and serve as proxy systems in biomembrane research. Therefore, lipid monolayers have been studied intensively including using molecular dynamics simulations, which are able to probe their lateral structure and interactions with, e.g., pharmaceuticals or nanoparticles. However, such simulations have struggled in describing the forces at the air-water interface. Particularly, the surface tension of water and long-range van der Waals interactions have been considered critical, but their importance in monolayer simulations has been evaluated only separately. Here, we combine the recent C36/LJ-PME lipid force field that includes long-range van der Waals forces with water models that reproduce experimental surface tensions to elucidate the importance of these contributions in monolayer simulations. Our results suggest that a water model with correct surface tension is necessary to reproduce experimental surface pressure-area isotherms and monolayer phase behavior. The latter includes the liquid expanded and liquid condensed phases, their coexistence, and the opening of pores at the correct area per lipid upon expansion. Despite these improvements of the C36/LJ-PME with certain water models, the standard cutoff-based CHARMM36 lipid model with the 4-point OPC water model still provides the best agreement with experiments. Our results emphasize the importance of using high-quality water models in applications and parameter development in molecular dynamics simulations of biomolecules.Peer reviewe

Calcium Sensing by Recoverin : Effect of Protein Conformation on Ion Affinity

The detailed functional mechanism of recoverin, which acts as a myristoyl switch at the rod outer-segment disk membrane, is elucidated by direct and replica-exchange molecular dynamics. In accord with NMR structural evidence and calcium binding assays, simulations point to the key role of enhanced calcium binding to the EF3 loop of the semiopen state of recoverin as compared to the closed state. This 2-4-order decrease in calcium dissociation constant stabilizes the semiopen state in response to the increase of cytosolic calcium concentration in the vicinity of recoverin. A second calcium ion then binds to the EF2 loop and, consequently, the structure of the protein changes from the semiopen to the open state. The latter has the myristoyl chain extruded to the cytosol, ready to act as a membrane anchor of recoverin.Peer reviewe

Interfacial Tension and Surface Pressure of High Density Lipoprotein, Low Density Lipoprotein, and Related Lipid Droplets

AbstractLipid droplets play a central role in energy storage and metabolism on a cellular scale. Their core is comprised of hydrophobic lipids covered by a surface region consisting of amphiphilic lipids and proteins. For example, high and low density lipoproteins (HDL and LDL, respectively) are essentially lipid droplets surrounded by specific proteins, their main function being to transport cholesterol. Interfacial tension and surface pressure of these particles are of great interest because they are related to the shape and the stability of the droplets and to protein adsorption at the interface. Here we use coarse-grained molecular-dynamics simulations to consider a number of related issues by calculating the interfacial tension in protein-free lipid droplets, and in HDL and LDL particles mimicking physiological conditions. First, our results suggest that the curvature dependence of interfacial tension becomes significant for particles with a radius of ∼5 nm, when the area per molecule in the surface region is <1.4 nm2. Further, interfacial tensions in the used HDL and LDL models are essentially unaffected by single apo-proteins at the surface. Finally, interfacial tensions of lipoproteins are higher than in thermodynamically stable droplets, suggesting that HDL and LDL are kinetically trapped into a metastable state

Using Open Data to Rapidly Benchmark Biomolecular Simulations : Phospholipid Conformational Dynamics

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are widely used to monitor time-resolved motions of biomacromolecules, although it often remains unknown how closely the conformational dynamics correspond to those occurring in real life. Here, we used a large set of open-access MD trajectories of phosphatidylcholine (PC) lipid bilayers to benchmark the conformational dynamics in several contemporary MD models (force fields) against nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data available in the literature: effective correlation times and spin-lattice relaxation rates. We found none of the tested MD models to fully reproduce the conformational dynamics. That said, the dynamics in CHARMM36 and Slipids are more realistic than in the Amber Lipid14, OPLS-based MacRog, and GROMOS-based Berger force fields, whose sampling of the glycerol backbone conformations is too slow. The performance of CHARMM36 persists when cholesterol is added to the bilayer, and when the hydration level is reduced. However, for conformational dynamics of the PC headgroup, both with and without cholesterol, Slipids provides the most realistic description because CHARMM36 overestimates the relative weight of similar to 1 ns processes in the headgroup dynamics. We stress that not a single new simulation was run for the present work. This demonstrates the worth of open-access MD trajectory databanks for the indispensable step of any serious MD study: benchmarking the available force fields. We believe this proof of principle will inspire other novel applications of MD trajectory databanks and thus aid in developing biomolecular MD simulations into a true computational microscope-not only for lipid membranes but for all biomacromolecular systems.Peer reviewe

Accurate Binding of Sodium and Calcium to a POPC Bilayer by Effective Inclusion of Electronic Polarization

Binding affinities and stoichiometries of Na+ and Ca2+ ions to phospholipid bilayers are of paramount significance in the properties and functionality of cellular membranes. Current estimates of binding affinities and stoichiometries of cations are, however, inconsistent due to limitations in the available experimental and computational methods. In this work, we improve the description of the binding details of Na+ and Ca2+ ions to a 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-phosphatidylcholine (POPC) bilayer by implicitly including electronic polarization as a mean field correction, known as the electronic continuum correction (ECC). This is applied by scaling the partial charges of a selected state-of-the-art POPC lipid model for molecular dynamics simulations. Our improved ECC-POPC model reproduces not only the experimentally measured structural parameters for the ion-free membrane, but also the response of lipid headgroup to a strongly bound cationic amphiphile, as well as the binding affinities of Na+ and Ca2+ ions. With our new model, we observe on the one side negligible binding of Na+ ions to POPC bilayer, while on the other side stronger interactions of Ca2+ primarily with phosphate oxygens, which is in agreement with the previous interpretations of the experimental spectroscopic data. The present model results in Ca2+ ions forming complexes with one to three POPC molecules with almost equal probabilities, suggesting more complex binding stoichiometries than those from simple models used to interpret the NMR data previously. The results of this work pave the way to quantitative molecular simulations with realistic electrostatic interactions of complex biochemical systems at cellular membranes.Peer reviewe

Quantitative Comparison against Experiments Reveals Imperfections in Force Fields’ Descriptions of POPC-Cholesterol Interactions

Cholesterol is a central building block in biomembranes, where it induces orientational order, slows diffusion, renders the membrane stiffer, and drives domain formation. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have played a crucial role in resolving these effects at the molecular level; yet, it has recently become evident that different MD force fields predict quantitatively different behavior. Although easily neglected, identifying such limitations is increasingly important as the field rapidly progresses toward simulations of complex membranes mimicking the in vivo conditions: pertinent multicomponent simulations must capture accurately the interactions between their fundamental building blocks, such as phospholipids and cholesterol. Here, we define quantitative quality measures for simulations of binary lipid mixtures in membranes against the C–H bond order parameters and lateral diffusion coefficients from NMR spectroscopy as well as the form factors from X-ray scattering. Based on these measures, we perform a systematic evaluation of the ability of commonly used force fields to describe the structure and dynamics of binary mixtures of palmitoyloleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPC) and cholesterol. None of the tested force fields clearly outperforms the others across the tested properties and conditions. Still, the Slipids parameters provide the best overall performance in our tests, especially when dynamic properties are included in the evaluation. The quality evaluation metrics introduced in this work will, particularly, foster future force field development and refinement for multicomponent membranes using automated approaches.publishedVersio

Quantitative Comparison against Experiments Reveals Imperfections in Force Fields’ Descriptions of POPC–Cholesterol Interactions

Cholesterol is a central building block in biomembranes, where it induces orientational order, slows diffusion, renders the membrane stiffer, and drives domain formation. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have played a crucial role in resolving these effects at the molecular level; yet, it has recently become evident that different MD force fields predict quantitatively different behavior. Although easily neglected, identifying such limitations is increasingly important as the field rapidly progresses toward simulations of complex membranes mimicking the in vivo conditions: pertinent multicomponent simulations must capture accurately the interactions between their fundamental building blocks, such as phospholipids and cholesterol. Here, we define quantitative quality measures for simulations of binary lipid mixtures in membranes against the C–H bond order parameters and lateral diffusion coefficients from NMR spectroscopy as well as the form factors from X-ray scattering. Based on these measures, we perform a systematic evaluation of the ability of commonly used force fields to describe the structure and dynamics of binary mixtures of palmitoyloleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPC) and cholesterol. None of the tested force fields clearly outperforms the others across the tested properties and conditions. Still, the Slipids parameters provide the best overall performance in our tests, especially when dynamic properties are included in the evaluation. The quality evaluation metrics introduced in this work will, particularly, foster future force field development and refinement for multicomponent membranes using automated approaches