[gmx-users] Checking the possibility of one complex out of possible two

[Justin Lemkul]

On 3/27/14, 1:59 PM, Pappu Kumar wrote:
> I got two long protein complexes made out of 20 monomers of ~300 residues.
> But only one complex exists biologically. I am trying to find out the
> energetically favourable complex by MD simulation in gromacs 4.6.5. Initially
> I took out a dimer from the complexes and ran steepest descent followed by
> L-BFGS minimization . Although the total energy was lower in one dimer, after
> the L-BFGS, the energy was similar.
>
> Then I ran 50ns MD simulation and calculated the interaction energies between
> the monomers which is similar in both cases. The idea was that in the wrong
> confomation the interaction energy would be lower.
>
> Now I am wondering how to find out the correct conformation between the two
> possibilites. I also checked the free energy of solvation which is different
> in both cases. I am not sure if it is a clear indicator of stability since
> entropy is not taken into account. Let me know if you have any ideas. I am
> planning to run coarse grained simulations in MARTINI.  Thank you.
>

Calculating an actual deltaG of binding (i.e. a PMF) between the two monomers is 
about the only legitimate way I can think of to do this.  The values of 
potential energy in a minimized structure are totally dependent on the force 
field, as are the nonbonded interaction energies, which (more importantly) 
aren't necessarily parametrized to be anything useful.

-Justin

-- 
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Justin A. Lemkul, Ph.D.
Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
School of Pharmacy
Health Sciences Facility II, Room 601
University of Maryland, Baltimore
20 Penn St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

jalemkul at outerbanks.umaryland.edu | (410) 706-7441
http://mackerell.umaryland.edu/~jalemkul

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