[gmx-users] separating bilayer leaflets - POPC vs. DMPC and DPPC

Eric Jakobsson jake at ncsa.uiuc.edu
Fri Sep 9 20:52:04 CEST 2005


We never did a separate publication on this--it is just a couple of 
sentences in one or our early papers--but one of the reasons we always use 
20 angstrom van der Waals cutoffs is that shorter cutoffs sometimes caused 
bilayer separation. One thinks of the long range van der Waals as 
unimportant because of falling off as the sixth power, but the other side 
of the coin is that, unlike the electrostatic long range, all the long 
range van der Waals is attractive; i.e., van der Waals forces are 
essentially unshielded.

At 12:24 PM 9/9/2005, David L. Bostick wrote:

>Hello,
>
>If your bilayer separation is coupled to an unrealistic area per headgroup,
>you may have a poorly equilibrated system. If you can prescribe an area and
>run the bilayer for some time (1-2 ns) in a constant area, constant
>pressure ensemble, and then switch to semiisotropic pressure coupling, this
>could fix it.  The same could be done with NVT, but again you will need to
>have a starting configuration with not only the correct area, but the
>correct density for water in the bathing solution.
>
>David
>
>
>
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>David Bostick                                   Office: 262 Venable Hall
>Dept. of Physics and Astronomy                  Phone:  (919)962-0165
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>
>On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, Louic Vermeer wrote:
>
> > Hi everybody!
> >
> > Thanks for your reply Andrey, unfortunately, it doesn't help a lot. I
> > already tried to use PME, but the bilayer separation remains (for POPC
> > only). g_rdf gives overlapping graphs for the water in all three
> > starting structures, so it is not dehydration that causes the separation
> > of the bilayer. I also tried pressure coupling:
> >  >> When using pressure coupling the bilayer looks better, simply because
> >  >> it  is being "pushed back" by the applied pressure (1 bar). This,
> >  >> however, does not remove the _cause_ for the lipids to move apart.
> >
> > Is there someone who has done NVT runs on POPC (or POPC/POPG) willing to
> > share his parameters? (Of course I looked in the literature, but this
> > did not get me all the info I'm looking for).
> >
> > with kind regards,
> > Louic
> >
> > Andrey V. Golovin wrote:
> > > Hi Louic!
> > > Yours case is quite strange.
> > > I used self assembled from random mixture DPPC and POPC bilayers and
> > > didn't notice any difference in behavior. I used Dr. Tieleman's 
> parameters.
> > > But this situation that you mentioned I faced then I started dehydrate
> > > (remove water) from the system at the constant Z axis value. Water tried
> > > to form normal interaction thought PBC , and separating bilayer leaflets
> > > has been happened.
> > > So in your case I would check density of water in system and do some
> > > simulations with pressure coupling and PME electrostaics.
> > >
> > > Andrey.
> > >
> > > Louic Vermeer wrote:
> > >
> > >> Dear gromacs users,
> > >>
> > >> The issue of separating bilayer leaflets has been posted to this
> > >> userlist by others before me, but none of the solutions that were
> > >> sugeested seems to work for me. Therefore I decided to bother you with
> > >> a short overview of what has been posted before, as well as my
> > >> (detailed) question.
> > >>
> > >> When starting an md run on the POPC bilayer (popc128a.pdb) from Dr.
> > >> Tieleman's website[1], the bilayer leaflets move apart in several
> > >> picoseconds (not instantly), leaving a vacuum between them. This
> > >> compresses the water that is present. A funny thing is however, that
> > >> this does not happen to the DMPC and DPPC bilayers from the same
> > >> website, using the same parameters[2]. As far as I know, these lipids
> > >> do not differ that much[3]. I did not (yet) modify any of the files
> > >> mentioned.
> > >>
> > >> Previously, these suggestions have been posted to solve similar 
> problems:
> > >> - use trjconv -pbc nojump
> > >> - try a cutoff distance of >= 2(nm)
> > >> - use pressure coupling
> > >> - use DispCorr = EnerPres
> > >> and recently something like:
> > >> - "be nicer to the lipids, maybe even use softcore."
> > >>
> > >> None of these options worked for me, though I must admit I do not
> > >> fully understand how to "be nice".
> > >>
> > >> When using pressure coupling the bilayer looks better, simply because
> > >> it  is being "pushed back" by the applied pressure (1 bar). This,
> > >> however, does not remove the _cause_ for the lipids to move apart.
> > >> Also, NVT must be possible.
> > >> I could of course impose position restraints on the lipids, but this
> > >> doesn't sound like a good idea to me, because the reason for using MD
> > >> is studying dynamics, and not lipids that were nailed to a place where
> > >> they "look better".
> > >>
> > >> Anyone?
> > >> Help will -of course- be greatly appreciated. And since you made it
> > >> all the way to the end of my question: Thanks!
> > >> More detailed info below.
> > >>
> > >> Louic Vermeer
> > >> Biophysics group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
> > >> IPBS, Toulouse, France
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> details
> > >> ------------------------
> > >>
> > >> [1] http://moose.bio.ucalgary.ca/index.php?page=Downloads
> > >>
> > >> [2] .mdp-file, parameters that were used for the md run. When comments
> > >> (;) are used, different values of these parameter were tried in
> > >> different runs, but did not solve the problem described above.
> > >>
> > >> integrator               = md
> > >> dt                       = 0.002
> > >> nsteps                   = 10000
> > >> comm-mode                = Linear
> > >> coulombtype              = Cut-off
> > >> rcoulomb_switch          = 0
> > >> rcoulomb                 = 1.8        ;2.4 ;1.0
> > >> epsilon_r                = 1.0
> > >> vdw-type                 = Cut-off
> > >> rvdw_switch              = 0
> > >> rvdw                     = 1.4        ;2.2
> > >> DispCorr                 = EnerPres   ;No
> > >> Tcoupl                   = Berendsen
> > >> tc_grps                  = POPC SOL
> > >> tau_t                    = 0.1 0.1    ;0,01 ;1
> > >> ref_t                    = 300 300    ;330
> > >> Pcoupl                   = no
> > >> annealing                = no no
> > >> constraint_algorithm     = Lincs
> > >> lincs-iter               = 1          ;2 ;8
> > >> lincs-order              = 4          ;8
> > >>
> > >> [3] Some differences between the lipids
> > >>
> > >> lipid    chains       MW
> > >> DPPC  16:0-16:0   734.05
> > >> DMPC  14:0-14:0   677.94
> > >> POPC  16:0-18:1   660.09
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> > >
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---------------------------------
Eric Jakobsson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, and of 
Biochemistry, and of the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology
Senior Research Scientist, National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
4021 Beckman Institute, mc251
University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
ph. 217-244-2896       fax 217-244-2909







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