ALBERT

Notizen: Counterpoise corrected ab initio calculations are reported for (H2O)2 and H2O-H2CO. Geometry searches were done in the moment-optimized basis DZP' at the SCF, MP2, and CEPA-1 levels of theory, followed by more accurate single-point calculations in basis ESPB, which includes bondfunctions to saturate the dispersion energy. The final equilibrium binding energies obtained are -4.7 ±0.3 kcal/mol for a near-linear (H2O)2 structure and -4.6 ±0.3 kcal/mol for a strongly bent HOH ‥ OCH2 structure. The energy difference between these systems is much smaller than in all previous ab initio work. Cyclic (C2h) and bifurcated (C2v) transition structures for (H2O)2 are located at 1.0 ±0.1 kcal/mol and 1.9 ±0.3 kcal/mol above the global minimum, respectively. A new partitioning scheme is presented that rigorously partitions the MP2 correlation interaction energy in intra and intermolecular (dispersion) contributions. These terms are large (up to 2 kcal/mol) but of opposite sign for most geometries studied and hence their overall effect upon the final structures is relatively small. The relative merits of the MP2 and CEPA-1 approaches are discussed are discussed and it is concluded that for economical reasons MP2 is to be preferred, especially for larger systems.

Notizen: A data compression method is presented that is generally applicable to first-order convergent iterative procedures that employ subspace expansions or extrapolations based on successive correction vectors. This method is based on the truncation of insignificant information in successive correction vectors. Although the correction vectors themselves may be severely truncated with the proposed approach, the final solution vector may be represented to arbitrary accuracy. A feature of the proposed method is that more slowly convergent iterative procedures allow the correction vectors to be more severely truncated without affecting the overall convergence rate. The method is implemented and applied to the iterative Davidson diagonalization method. If the compressed representation of the expansion vectors can be held in main computer memory, then a significant reduction in the I/O requirements is achieved.

Notizen: By examining the displacement coordinate metric three modes of constrained optimization for large molecules and clusters are suggested. The first method corresponds to a conventional optimization using internal coordinates. The second mode has applications with respect to both internal and cartesian coordinates. The final mode is particularly interesting because it can result in computational savings. A mixture of both internal and cartesian coordinates is specified where these coordinates are usually a subset of the molecules or clusters total coordinate set. In the optimization only a subset of the energy derivatives need be evaluated reducing the computational effort associated with the gradient calculation.

Notizen: A finite-field method for the calculation of polarizabilities and hyperpolarizabilities is developed based on both an energy expansion and a dipole moment expansion. This procedure is implemented in the MOPAC semiempirical program. Values and components of the dipole moment (μ), polarizability (α), first hyperpolarizability (β), and second hyperpolarizability (γ) are calculated as an extension of the usual MOPAC run. Applications to benzene and substituted benzenes are shown as test cases utilizing both MNDO and AM1 Hamiltonians.

Notizen: A procedure has been developed for global energy minimization of surface loops of proteins in the presence of a fixed core. The ECEPP potential function has been modified to allow more accurate representations of hydrogen bond interactions and intrinsic torsional energies. A computationally efficient representation of hydration free energy has been introduced. A local minimization procedure has been developed that uses a cutoff distance, minimization with respect to subsets of degrees of freedom, analytical second derivatives, and distance constraints between rigid segments to achieve efficiency in applications to surface loops. Efficient procedures have been developed for deforming segments of the initial backbone structure and for removing overlaps. Global energy minimization of a surface loop is accomplished by generating a sequence (or a trajectory) of local minima, the component steps of which are generated by searching collections of local minima obtained by deforming seven-residue segments of the surface loop. The search at each component step consists of the following calculations: (1) A large collection of backbone structures is generated by deforming a seven-residue segment of the initial backbone structure. (2) A collection of low-energy backbone structures is generated by applying local energy minimization to the resulting collection of backbone structures (interactions involving side chains that will be searched in this component step are not included in the energy). (3) One low-energy side-chain structure is generated for each of the resulting low-energy backbone structures. (4) A collection of low-energy local minima is generated by applying local energy minimization to the resulting collection of structures. (5) The local minimum with the lowest energy is retained as the next point of the trajectory. Applications of our global search procedure to surface segments of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) and bovine trypsin suggest that component-step searches are reasonably complete. The computational efficiency of component-step searches is such that trajectories consisting of about 10 component steps are feasible using an FPS-5200 array processor. Our procedure for global energy minimization of surface loops is being used to identify and correct problems with the potential function and to calculate protein structure using a combination of sequence homology and global energy minimization.

Notizen: A systematic analysis of the molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) is presented. This study has been performed with a twofold purpose: first, to study the MEP dependence with regard to the quality of the basis set used to compute the ab initio SCF wavefunction and second, to develop and to assess a new strategy for computing isoelectrostatic potential maps using the semiempirical MNDO wavefunction. The only differences between this procedure and the ab initio SCF MEP computation lie in the freezing of the inner electrons and in the origin of the first-order density matrix. The statistical analysis of MEPs computed for a large number of molecules from MNDO wavefunction and ab initio SCF wavefunctions obtained using STO-3G, 4-31G, 6-31G, 4-31G*, 6-31G*, and 6-31G** basis sets points out the ability of any wavefunction to reproduce the general topological characteristics of the MEP surfaces. Nevertheless, split-valence basis sets including polarization functions are necessary to obtain accurate MEP minimum energy values. MNDO wavefunction tends to overestimate the MEP minima depth by a constant factor and shows an excellent ability to reflect the relative variation of MEP minima energies derived from a rather sophisticated (6-31G*) basis set, lacking of the shortcomings detected in the semiempirical CNDO approximation.

Notizen: Expressions are derived for computing the kinetic energy of a peptide with fixed geometry, in terms of dihedral angles as generalized coordinates; other expressions required for the solution of Lagrange's equations are also presented. The peptide is regarded as held stationary at one end. We also outline the computations that are needed in calculating the components of the third derivative of a potential energy function that consists of a sum of pairwise interatomic interactions.

Notizen: Complexes of alkali and alkaline earth cations with organic compounds are modeled by describing ionligand interaction energies with pair potentials and intraligand as well as interligand energies with the MM2 potential. New pair potentials for the interaction of Li+, Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ ions are derived on the basis of 30,000 ab initio interaction energy values with 70 selected model ligand molecules. Various problems of the combination of these two basically different potentials are discussed. An application for the K+ complex of 18-crown-6 is presented. For more flexible ligands the introduction of three-body correction terms of the pair potentials seems necessary.

Notizen: The geometry, electronic structure, and photoelectron spectra of Sb2 and Sb4 have been investigated employing the LCGTO-MP-LSD method. For both molecules the geometrical and spectroscopic constants computed using the VWN potential are in very good agreement with the available experimental data. The HeI photoelectron spectra were computed with different potentials (Xα, GL, HL, BH, and VWN). The calculated spectra are in excellent agreement with the experimental ones and the use of the VWN potential gives the most accurate results. The reliable results for molecules complement those for the Sb atom and show that the proposed LSD Model Potential is able to give an accurate description of the structural and spectroscopic properties of the title molecules.

Notizen: Intermolecular potential functions have been developed for use in computer simulations of alkyl ethers. The simple OPLS model was adopted and parameterized to yield good descriptions of bimolecular and ion-molecule complexes as well as to reproduce experimental thermodynamic properties of liquid ethers. The principal testing featured Monte Carlo statistical mechanics simulations for liquid dimethyl ether (DME), ethyl methyl ether (EME), diethyl ether (DEE), and tetrahydrofuran (THF). Average errors of 1-3% are obtained for the computed densities and heats of vaporization including results for THF at pressures up to 5000 atm. The torsional motion about the central C—O bonds in EME and DEE was included in the simulations using rotational potential functions fit to results of molecular mechanics (MM2) calculations. The liquid-state environment is found to have negligible effect on the conformational equilibria.

Notizen: A quadrature-point-driven implementation of the standard Rys polynomial method for computing two-electron repulsion integrals of gaussian basis functions has been found to be both concise and openended with respect to the angular momentum of the gaussian functions (i.e., s,p,d,f,g,…). These are important features in certain applications, such as molecular properties and property gradients.

Notizen: Free energy perturbation calculations were performed to determine the free energy of binding associated with the presence of perhaps an unusual hydroxyl group in the transition state analog of nebularine, an inhibitor of the enzyme adenosine deaminase. The presence of a single hydroxyl group in this inhibitor has been found to contribute -9.8 kcal/mol to the free energy of binding, with a 108-fold increase in the binding affinity by the enzyme. In this work, we calculate the difference in solvation free energy for the 1,6-dihydropurine complex versus that of the 6-hydroxyl-1,6-dihydropurine complex to determine if this marked increase in binding affinity is attributed to an unusually hydrophobic hydroxyl group. The calculated ΔG associated for the solvation free energy is -11.8 kcal/mol. This large change in the solvation free energy suggests that this hydroxyl is instead unusually hydrophilic and that the difference in free energy of interaction for the two inhibitors to the enzyme must be at least ca. 20 kcal/mol. Although the crystal structure for adenosine deaminase is currently not known, we attempt to mimic the nature of the active site by constructing models which simulate the enzyme-inhibitor complex. We present a first attempt at determining the change in free energy of binding for a system in which structural data for the enzyme is incomplete. To do this, we construct what we believe is a minimal model of the binding between adenosine deaminase and an inhibitor. The active site is simulated as a single charged carboxyl group which can form a hydrogen bond with the hydroxyl group of the analog. Two different carboxyl anion models are used. In the first model, the association is modeled between an acetic acid anion and the modified inhibitor. The second model consists of a hydrophobic amino acid pocket with an interior Glu residue in the active site. From these models we calculate the change in free energy of association and the overall change in free energy of binding. We calculate the free energies of interaction both in the absence and presence of water. We conclude from this that the presence of a single suitably placed-CO-2 group probably cannot explain the binding effect of the-OH group and that additional interactions will be found in the adenosine deaminase active site.

Notizen: Pseudopotentials and valence basis sets to be used in calculations for organometallic compounds of zinc and magnesium have been tested in calculations for the M(CH3)n (M = Zn, Mg; n = 1,2) molecules. Valence correlation effects are treated at the SDCI and CEPA levels. The capability of a polarization potential on zinc to account for the valence shell contracting effect of core valence correlation is studied. Properties considered are geometries, force constants, Mulliken populations, ionization potentials, atomization, and binding energies. Differences in bonding between the two dimethyl compounds are discussed.

Notizen: The acid-catalyzed hydrolysis mechanisms of maleamic (4-amino-4-oxo-2-butenoic) acids were studied using AM1 method. The reaction proceeded mainly in two steps: (1) nucleophilic attack of the undissociated carboxyl group on the adjacent aminocarbonyl carbon via a zwitterionic intermediate; and (2) the rate-determining proton transfer to form the zwitterionic tetrahedral intermediate. In each step, the hydration of water and hydronium ion molecules was important in stabilizing the polarized intermediates. The substituent effects at the amide moiety and the 2,3-positions of the maleamic acids were qualitatively estimated for each step.

Notizen: A prescription for applying the method of molecular similarity calculations based on electrostatic potentials and fields is developed by consideration of a typical structure-activity series. Firm conclusions are drawn about the nature of the grid of points surrounding the molecules and about the choice of geometry, but options for point charges are less clearcut.

Notizen: An expanded form of the Wiener number is suggested for characterization of molecular graphs and structure-property correlations. The simple, computer-oriented method for counting of the novel index is briefly discussed.

Notizen: A common requirement in conformational analysis is the identification of a molecule's lowest energy conformations. The application of the A* algorithm to this problem is examined. The algorithm uses heuristic information about the problem domain to direct the search and has been implemented in a system for performing automated conformational analysis. The method is detailed and sample results presented. Some limitations of the approach are identified.

Notizen: Heats of formation and net atomic charges of some 120 structures involving substituted phenols, anilines, and benzoic acids and the corresponding anions were calculated by MNDO, AM1, and PM3 semiempirical methods. The gas phase acidities of substituted phenols and anilines and the net atomic charges on the anionic heteroatoms of the corresponding anions have been successfully correlated with σ- constants. Moreover, good correlations with σ were found for the charges on the acidic hydrogens of substituted phenols and anilines. In contrast, the gas phase acidities of substituted benzoic acids and the charges on the anionic oxygens of the corresponding anions are better correlated with Taft σ° constants. Comparisons of these results with experimental data and ab initio theoretical calculations indicate that AM1 and PM3 methods are much better than MNDO in predicting the acidity of aromatic compounds.

Notizen: We studied geometries and energies of complexes between water and neutral or protonated imidazole by ab initio molecular orbital calculations using the 4-31G basis set with and without the counterpoise correction. Positions of hydration sites and relative binding energies could be also estimated by using the electrostatic field map of imidazole as calculated by our bond increment method. The reliability of the calculations is confirmed by comparing the geometries of the imidazole-water complex to the experimental ones from the Cambridge Structural Database. These were obtained by X-ray diffraction studies on crystals with water bound to a molecule containing the imidazole fragment.

Notizen: A new method for the evaluation of metal complexes with molecular mechanics calculations is described. The method has been employed to determine the global minimum energy conformations of three seven-coordinate lanthanide complexes. The method searches the potential energy surface of the metal complexes for the global minimum structure using the recently reported Random Incremental Pulse Search (RIPS). The molecular mechanics calculations were performed using the MM2 metal-extended force field (MM2MX). This force field excludes 1-3 bending terms about the metal center and, instead, explicitly includes 1-3 nonbonded van der Waals interactions. This affords a model based mainly on steric interactions about the ligating atoms, and removes the necessity of specifying ligand-metal-ligand bond angles for seven-coordinate and higher metal complexes in which no preferred bond angle can be proficiently determined. The calculated minimum-energy structures were well known seven-coordinate conformations in all cases, and a comparison with X-ray crystallographic is presented.

Notizen: The method of approximation of the frozen molecular fragment (FMF) we derived has been applied to calculations of proton affinities. Results are in good agreement with experimental data and extended basis set calculations.

Notizen: Myelin basic protein (MBP) is the major extrinsic protein of the myelin sheath in the central nervous system. It is this protein that is destroyed in such demyelinating diseases as multiple sclerosis. We have examined the predicted structures of one segment of MBP using the molecular mechanics program ECEPP83 developed by Scheraga and co-workers as modified by Chuman, Momany, and Schafer. We have focused upon a segment, 87-118, containing the Pro-Pro-Pro sequence (residues 100-102), which has been predicted from standard algorithms to exist in a hairpin loop connecting anti-parallel beta-strands. Several local energy minima have been found and reported. Tripoline sequences are not rare in proteins, but their structure and function is still uncertain.

Notizen: Two new computational methods for the evaluation and partitioning of projected, planar, and averaged slab electron densities, implemented in the program PRODEN, are presented. The new algorithms for the projection, demarcation, and integration of electron densities are described and evaluated in terms of speed and numerical accuracy. Integrated Projected Populations are analyzed and some of the advantages and limitations of the methods are discussed.

Notizen: This is a study of the effect of data structures and algorithms on parallelism and vectorization for the molecular dynamics package GROMOS. About 80% of the computing time (for the GROMOS benchmark) is spent on the nonbonded interactions, and an important issue is the method that is used for finding all pairs of atoms (actually atom groups) which are within a given cutoff radius of each other. Favored by the authors of GROMOS is the use of the (Verlet) neighbor list with direct calculation of all distances. Substantial restructuring of their code for the nonbonded interactions has resulted in a speedup of a factor 6.9 for the eight-processor Alliant FX/8 through the use of concurrent subroutine calls. Vectorization gave a further improvement of 30%. However, the direct calculation of all distances does not scale up linearly with the number of atoms. (Nor would neighbor lists be needed if cutoffs were abandoned in favor of such techniques as the fast multipole method). Therefore an alternative GROMOS subroutine that implements the “gridcell plus linked list” approach without a neighbor list was also rewritten and tested. This resulted in the discovery of an apparent flaw in an early study of the relative merits of the two algorithms. It is observed that actually the neighbor list version of GROMOS is not much faster.

Notizen: Conformational energies of different conformers have been calculated for a series of molecules using various molecular mechanics and semiempirical methods. The quality of the force fields has also been tested by calculating barriers to rotation about carbon-carbon bonds. The molecular mechanics force fields used are MM2(85), Sybyl 5.1, Sybyl 5.21, and ChemX, ver. Jan 89. The semiempirical methods used are AM1 and PM3. Molecules with different functional groups, for which good experimental data exist, have been selected. The semiempirical methods generally calculate barriers to rotation which are lower than the experimentally determined. The conformational energies for hydrocarbons are reasonably well reproduced by all tested methods although MM2(85) gives the quantitatively best agreement with experiments. For compounds containing oxygen, nitrogen and halogens MM2(85) gives results which are in best agreement with the experimentally determined values.

Notizen: The modeling program AMBER 3.0 was used to study the conformations adopted by the C8-substituted guanosine adduct of the carcinogen N-2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF), called dGuo-AAF. This conformational study was extended to the hexamer d(CGCGCG)2 in the Z form, modified by AAF at guanine G4 with the carcinogen situated at the helix exterior in two different orientations (named ZAAF-5′ and ZAAF-3′). Considering the importance of electrostatic interactions in case of charged molecules like nucleic acids, minimization and molecular dynamics (MD) were performed using different electrostatic parameters (dielectric functions and scale factors). For that purpose, a subroutine allowing the use of a sigmoidal distance-dependent dielectric function εcal has been added to the program. For dGuo-AAF, the results show a great importance of the starting conformation and of the force field parameters on the minimization and MD behaviors. For the AAF-modified Z-DNA, the results display a pronouned dependence on the choice of the set of electrostatic parameters as well. With the distance-dependent dielectric function ε = r, the force field parameters favor the formation of intramolecular H bonds, which can lead to important distortions of Z-DNA. The use of ε = 4r or ε = εcal attenuates effectively such a tendency, except in full MD simulations. The dielectric function εcal is computing intense, but often similar results are obtained with ε = 4r, especially with the use of the BELLY option. AAF appears to prefer the ZAAF-5′ conformation, i.e., with the fluorene ring stacking on the sugar phosphate backbone of the following 5′ C-G bases. Such a conformation is further stabilized by an intramolecular hydrogen bond between the amino group of the 3′ cytosine and the carbonyl group of AAF. The fluorene ring, although mobile around its long axis, does not flip-flop between its two main orientations, ZAAF-5′ and ZAAF-3′. The presence of the AAF does not prevent the ZI to ZII transitions. Whatever the electrostatic parameters, the presence or absence of AAF, the cytosine sugars stay in the C2′-endo pucker domain. In unmodified Z-DNA, the guanine sugars stay in the C3′-endo region, except for the terminal guanines which transit to the C2′endo region. In modified Z-DNA, the sugar of the modified guanine behaves as a terminal guanine sugar.

Notizen: This article presents theoretical calculations on bond energies for the first-row diatomics C2, CN, CO, CF, N2, NO, NF, O2, FO, and F2, which vary in bond order from one to three. The atomic-centered basis functions are systematically augmented with bond functions (BFs), which range in composition from (sp) to 2(spd), to determine the basis set which yields a dissociation energy closest to the experimental De. A strong correlation is found to exist between the bond order and the number of BFs required in the optimum basis set. Based on these results, we are able to predict the optimum composition of the BF basis which should be added to a DZP-quality AO basis set for a case in which only the bond order is known. These optimized BF basis sets are shown in the accompanying article to give more accurate potential curves than larger basis sets without bond functions.

Notizen: The harmonic molecular force fields for the nucleic acid bases, cytosine, and guanine, that have been previously published by several investigators are tested by the calculation of the relative intensities of the in-plane modes in the ultraviolet resonance Raman (UVRR) effect from the two lowest lying absorption bands using a theoretical approach devised previously.1-3 Since only a fraction of the 2N - 3 in-plane vibrations of a molecule are active in the UVRR, the two criteria that are taken for the adjustment of the force constant are: (1) the closest possible agreement between the observed and calculated frequencies of the 2N - 3 in-plane vibrations, and (2) the closest possible agreement between the calculated and observed intensities of those few vibrations that are strongly active in the ultraviolet resonance Raman effect. In particular it is necessary that the force constants be adjusted to avoid the calculation of intense Raman lines with frequencies that are not observed in the UVRR spectrum. Using this criteria, a new force field has been developed that appears to give better agreement with the observed UVRR intensities than previously published ones. It is suggested that this calculation of the UVRR intensities can be used to refine molecular force fields in combination with other methods such as isotopic replacement currently in use to refine force constants.

Notizen: The calculated result obtained with MM2(87) for the rotation of the isopropyl group in 3-methyl-1-butene is not in agreement with experimental data. In order to reparametrize the Csp2-Csp3-Csp-Csp3 torsional angle, 3-methyl-1-butene and 1-butene have been studied by molecular mechanics (MM2(87)) and ab initio (MP2/6-31G* and MP3/6-31G*) calculations. The reparametrization of the torsional angle gives calculated results from MM2(87) in agreement with experimental data and ab initio calculations for both 3-methyl-1-butene and 1-butene. The calculated barriers for the rotation of alkyl groups in alkylbenzenes are improved with these new parameters.

Notizen: Vibrational spectra were obtained for the structurally similar compounds 2-methylbutyronitrile and 3-methyl-1-pentyne, and vibrational assignments were made with the aid of normal coordinate calculations. Molecular mechanics calculations were also made, and each compound was shown to exist as a mixture of three conformers, with the most stable conformer being the one with the two methyl groups trans to each other. Results of the calculations are given.

Notizen: Finite difference methods are becoming very popular for calculating electrostatic fields around molecules. Due to the large amount of computer memory required, grid spacings cannot be made extremely small in relation to the size of the van der Waals radii of the atoms. As a result, the calculations make a rather crude approximation to the molecular surface by defining grid line midpoints discontinuously as either interior or exterior. We present a method which “smoothes” the boundary, but more accurately models the potential from the analytic solution of the discontinuous dielectric problem and improves convergence in electrostatic energy calculations. In addition, a small improvement in convergence rate is observed.

Notizen: An algorithm is presented for calculating the solvent accessible surface area of proteins using a three-dimensional grid. Since it requires only calculations based on single atomic positions, the algorithm is easy to be vectorized. It has been implemented on ST100 and may also be implemented on supercomputers like the CRAY or the CYBER. Results on several proteins indicate that its deviation from that of the Shrake-Rupley algorithm is very small while the computation time is much reduced.

Notizen: The use of principal components as a basis for a graphical procedure to analyze polar tensor data is proposed. Molecular orbital and experimental polar tensor data for all possible sign combinations of the ∂p/∂Qj of CHCl3 and CDCl3 are represented graphically as principal component scores facilitating sign selection for the ∂p/∂Qj. The graphs are particularly useful in analyzing an apparent conflict in ∂p/∂Qj sign choices based on the isotopic invariance criterion and molecular orbital results for the A1 symmetry species of these molecules. The numerical impacts of individual sign ambiguities for the ∂p/∂Qj on the polar tensor data are measured by the variances associated with the principal components. Assuming the ∂p/∂Qj sign sets with indeterminate signs provide replicated results for the polar tensor elements, their errors are estimated and compared with errors obtained previously by propagating intensity uncertainties through the polar tensor equations.

Notizen: A novel method to calculate electrostatic charges is proposed. Partial charges are fitted to reproduce the electrostatic potential of a distributed multipole series without explicitly evaluating electrostatic potentials. The calculation is economical and results in charges reflecting the symmetry properties of charge centers and being independent of molecular orientation.

Notizen: MM2-87 calculations have been performed on C60 (buckminsterfullerence; footballene) and C70 with full energy minimization. The steric energies for C60 and C70 were computed to be 179.9 and 177.9 kcal/mol, respectively. The heats of formation for C60 is found to be more stable than C60. The two bond lengths for C60 were computed to be 1.393 and 1.444 Å. Eight different bond lengths were found for C70 ranging from 1.386 to 1.452 Å. Bond angles, dihedral angles, and moments of inertia are also reported for the compounds.

Notizen: The Metropolis Monte Carlo method has been added to the program FANTOM for energy refinement of polypeptides and proteins using a Newton-Raphson minimizer in torsion angle space. With this extension, different strategies for global minimization of the semiempirical energy function ECEPP/2 by various temperature schedules and restriction of conformational space were tested for locating local minimum conformations with low energy of the pentapeptide Met-enkephalin. In total, 1881 conformations below -10 kcal/mol were found. These conformations could be represented by 77 nonidentical conformations which were analysed for their pattern of hydrogen bonds, types of tight turn, pairwise root-mean-square-deviation (rmsd), Zimmermann codes and side chain conformations. All low energy conformations below -10.4 kcal/mol show strong similarity to the global minimum conformation in the backbone structure.

Notizen: We have developed a method for building up accurate electrostatic models for polypeptides, based on a distributed multipole representation of the SCF charge densities for the dipeptides (CH3.CO.NH.CHR.CO.NH.CH3) of the naturally occurring amino acids. It is based on the observation that each peptide residue has almost the correct formal charge (0, ±1). We find that the variations in the backbone charge distributions (excluding proline) with sidechain have a negligible effect on the predicted electrostatic potential around the residue. However changes in the atomic multipoles with the torsion angles (φ, ψ, χ) are more significant, and may need to be taken into account if electrostatic potential close to the residue is required to high accuracy. This type of DMA peptide library provides more accurate, more theoretically based, estimates of the electrostatic potential around polypeptides than current models.

Notizen: An extensive conformational analysis of 3′-azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) was performed at the semiempirical AM1 level with full relaxation of all geometric parameters and careful consideration of furan puckering and the rotational states of the thymine - furan, furan - azide, furan - methylene, and methylene - hydroxyl bonds. The search located 70 conformers, 21 of which have relative energies within 2.5 kcal/mol of the global minimum. Several geometric features, including various forms of hydrogen bonding, within this selected lowenergy subset were examined in terms of their relative contributions to the conformational states of AZT. Hydrogen bonding of thymine's position 2 carbonyl oxygen atom to the hydroxymethyl group (O2—;HO), which until recently has not been mentioned in the literature, is observed in a few low-energy AM1 conformations; however, this form is less favored at the AM1 level than the usually depicted modes involving the thymine moiety with the oxygen atoms of the hydroxyl and furan groups (H6—;OH and H6—Ofur, as observed in the two crystallographically independent structures), as well as that involving the hydroxyl hydrogen and furan oxygen atoms (OH—Ofur, which also has not been mentioned for AZT in the literature until recently). The AM1-optimized geometries agree more closely with nuclear magnetic resonance data than with crystallographic structures and bear little resemblance to molecular mechanics results. The present study shows no evidence of a single dominant conformation or single structural parameter that determines AZT's conformational states. In contrast to our previous analogous study of cGMP, this computational study of AZT does not show strong evidence of a syn conformation with hydrogen bonding involving the base.

Notizen: The potential energy surfaces of four cyclic alkanes have been examined using molecular mechanics, semiempirical, and ab initio methods to determine if they produce mutually consistent results and investigate the source of any errors between the methods. The C5 — C8 cyclic alkanes were chosen since these structures present a finite set of conformations and transition-state geometries and are still within the computational time and memory limits of the quantum mechanical approaches. We also examined several conformations of 1,2-dideoxyribose to determine the effect of heteroatoms on the results for the 5-membered ring. The molecular mechanics and ab initio calculations are consistent in the relative energies and geometries determined for the conformers of all ring systems. While the semiempirical calculations yielded geometries consistent with the other methods (except for 5-membered rings), the relative energies often deviated substantially. A decomposition analysis of the semiempirical and molecular mechanics energies revealed that the disparities are mainly due to errors in the 1-center energies of the semiempirical calculations. The 2-center bonding and nonbonding energies followed reasonable trends for the conformers. The core-repulsion function, however, is suspected of producing anomalies. A minimum in the attractive Gaussian of this term at 2.1 Å for H—H interactions partly explains the propensity of the 5-membered rings to optimize to near planarity (decreasing 1,2-diaxial hydrogen distances to 2.3 Å) and the underestimation of the relative energy of the boat structure of cyclohexane.

Notizen: We have derived alternative expressions for computing the energies and forces associated with angle bending and torsional energy terms commonly used in molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics computer programs. Our expressions address the problems of singularities that are intrinsic in popular angle energy functions and that occur from other chain rule derivations of force expressions. Most chain rule derivations of expressions for Cartesian forces due to angle energies make use of relations such as \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$$ \frac{{\partial E}}{{\partial x}} = \frac{{\partial E}}{{\partial \phi }}\frac{{\partial \phi }}{{\partial \cos \phi }}\frac{{\partial \cos \phi }}{{\partial x}} $$\end{document} where φ is a bond or torsion angle, E(φ) is energy, and ∂/∂x represents a derivative with respect to some Cartesian coordinate. This expression leads to singularities from the middle term, -1/sin φ, when φ is 0 or π. This is a problem that prevents the use of torsional energy expressions that have phase angles, φ°, other than 0 or π, such as in E(φ) = κ[1 + cos(nφ - phsi;°)]. Our derivations make use of a different, but equivalent, form of the chain rule: \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$$ \frac{{\partial E}}{{\partial x}} = \frac{{\partial E}}{{\partial \phi }}\frac{{\partial \phi }}{{\partial x}} $$\end{document} This form still possesses singularities for the bond angle forces since the last factor is undefined when φ is 0 or π. However, the alternate form may be used to great advantage for the torsional angle forces where no such problem arises. The new expressions are necessary if one desires the use of torsional energy expressions with general phase angles. Even for energy expressions in common use, i.e., with phase angles of 0 or π, our force expressions are as computationally efficient as the standard ones. The new expressions are applicable to all molecular simulations that employ restrained, or phase-shifted, torsional angle energy expressions.

Notizen: Atomic monopoles are routinely determined through a least squares fit to molecular electrostatic potentials. We report studies of the variation in atomic monopoles with variation in conformation for the zwitterionic polar head group of lecithins, a common class of lipid. The monopole of one atom, a relatively buried carbon, varied by 1.3 electron units between different conformers. “Exterior” atoms, as seen previously, showed smaller changes in charge and smaller estimated standard deviations. The total charge of local groups of atoms varied less than the charge of individual atoms, indicating that shifts in charge occurred mostly between neighboring atoms. This effect might be reflected in the high correlations seen between charges of many neighboring atoms. These correlations, while present for many logical groupings of atoms (such as within methylene and methyl groups), are curiously absent between some bonded atoms. Monopoles were fit to multiple conformations simultaneously to provide a charge set that could optimally reproduce the electrostatic potential of all the conformers as a means of generating monopoles for molecular dynamics simulations or other studies where conformation varies. In some cases, the charges on chemically equivalent atoms (e.g., the hydrogen atoms in a methyl group) were different by more than their estimated error of fit. These studies lead to the suggestion that a minimum error in reported charges is on the order of 10%. All conformations show that the positive charge of the trimethylalkyl ammonium group is carried by the methyl hydrogens; the total charge on the nine hydrogens is over 2 electron units, counterbalanced by negative monopoles on the carbons. The presence of this diffuse cloud of substantial charge would appear to be a disindicator of the use of a “united” atoms approach for these methyl groups. The effects of the charge variation on intermolecular interactions is also examined.

Notizen: An ab initio study of 3-chloro-, 3-hydroxy-, 3-mercapto-, and 3-amino-propanenitrile and 4-chloro-bu- tanenitrile was carried out at several levels of theory. The calculated stabilities and geometrical trends are interpreted in terms of the effects of intramolecular hydrogen bonds and anomeric interactions, and compared with available experimental data.

Notizen: Quantum mechanical (ab initio and semiempirical) and force field calculations are reported for representative torsion potentials in several tetrahydropyran derivatives. The overall agreement between the various methods is quite good except that the AMBER torsion profiles are sensitive to the choice of atomic point charges. Using electrostatic potential (ESP) derived atomic point charges determined with the STO-3G basis set we find that AMBER is able to match the best quantum mechanical results quite well. However, when the point charges are derived using the 6-31G* basis set we find that scaling the intramolecular electrostatic nonbond interactions is necessary. AM1 does not work very well for these compounds when compared to the ab initio methods and, therefore, should only be used in cases when ab initio calculations would be prohibitive. Based upon our results we feel that any force field that makes use of 6-31G* ESP derived atomic point charges will need to scale intramolecular interactions. Implications of scaling intramolecular interactions to the development of force fields based on 6-31G* ESP derived atomic point charges are discussed. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) distribution of anisole, chlorobenzene, and fluorobenzene obtained from STO-3G, 3-21G, and 6-31G* basis set ab initio and MNDO and AM1 semiempirical wave functions is investigated to explain the differences among the MEP features obtained for polychlorodibenzo-p-dioxins. The main topological features as well as the absoltue and relative minima location obtained from ab initio calculations are independent from the choice of the basis set. MNDO calculations are in good agreement with the ab initio ones in the case of anisole and fluorobenzene, while they incorrectly describe the MEP of chlorobenzene. The AM1 fails to localize the absolute minimum of fluorobenzene and does not find the minimum above the chlorobenzene chlorine atom. The poor agreement of both semiempirical methods with ab initio for any kind of chlorinated compounds is confirmed by results obtained for chloreothylene and chloroethane. We hypothesize that the main problem concerning these methods is that they freeze a too large amount of electrons in the atomic core of elements belonging to the second row, which makes for a wrong description of the core-valence electron interactions. Results obtained by modifying the AM1 parameters related to these interactions confirm our hypothesis. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A numerical method for solving the approximate Schrödinger equation (SE) for a single internal motion is presented. In the SE the reduced moment of inertia I(φ) and potential energy V(φ) are expressed as functions of the torsional angle φ. Molecular examples include ethane, chloroethane, and 1,2-dichloroethane for which I(φ) and V(φ) have been derived from the HF/6-31G* optimized geometries and energies at φ increments of 30°. The resulting potential energy curves, energy levels, and wave functions are shown graphically. The calculated fundamental torsional frequencies are found to fall within 10 cm-1 of the experimental values. Approximations for the off-diagonal energy matrix elements, and numerical accuracy of torsional energy levels, are shown to be satisfactory. Attention is called to the computer programs developed for this work and their applications to torsional studies in relevant areas of spectroscopy, thermodynamics, and reaction rates. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The electronegativities () of some 36 atoms/groups (including some 6 ionic ones) X are calculated from the atomic charges in the corresponding methyl species CH3X that were obtained by applying Bader's theory of atoms in molecules. The numerical values of the for the various groups studied are reasonable and correlate linearly with the two existing experimental scales for group electronegativity, Inamoto's i scale and the 1JCC (ortho-ipso) coupling constants in the monosubstituted benzenes, to satisfactory extents. The relations between the values and some “critical properties” of the various CH3X molecules considered are also studied. It is suggested that in a molecule PX, rP/R where rP is the distance of Bader's critical point on the bond PX of length R from the atom P or the binding atom of the group P can be a very good measure of the electronegativity of the atom/group X. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Modifications to the distance geometry algorithm as embodied in the program DGEOM have been made to improve sampling capabilities. Specifically, torsion angle sampling replaces distance sampling for 1,4 atomic relationships and correlated distance sampling is disabled. The effects of these modifications are illustrated by comparing the different sets of conformations produced for butane. In addition, these changes are shown to increase the conformational sampling of two medium-sized rings, cycloheptadecane and caprylolactam. The current results for these molecules are compared to those of other conformational searching methods.

Notizen: A two-component Kramers' restricted Hartree-Fock method (KRHF) has been developed for the polyatomic molecules with closed shell configurations. The present KRHF program utilizes the relativistic effective core potentials with spin-orbit operators at the Hartree-Fock (HF) level and produces molecular spinors obeying the double group symmetry. The KRHF program enables the variational calculation of spin-orbit interactions at the HF level. KRHF calculations have been performed for the HX, X2, XY(X, Y = I, Br), and CH3I molecules. It is demonstrated that the orbital energies from KRHF calculations are useful for the interpretation of spin-orbit splittings in photoelectron spectra. In all molecules studied, bond lengths are only slightly expanded, harmonic vibrational frequencies are reduced, and bond energies are significantly decreased by the spin-orbit interactions.

Notizen: A computational chemistry study of the artificial redox enzyme synthesized by covalently attaching flavin to cyclodextrins explains some of its properties. Calculations indicate that the flavin moiety covalently attached to cyclodextrin is not within the cavity of cyclodextrin. This result is consistent with the UV-vis spectrum of the artificial enzyme. The calculations also indicate hydrogen bonds formed between the carbonyl groups of the catalytic functionality and the hydroxyl groups of cyclodextrin play a role in their most stable conformation. This explains the observed overall stability of these artificial enzymes compared to riboflavin. Electrostatic energies and solvation energies play a major role in the stability of the hosts and the orientation of guests included within the artificial enzymes. The rates of oxidation of various thiols catalyzed by the artificial enzyme can be explained by the relative distances between the sulfur atom of the substrates and C(4a) of the flavin moiety.

Notizen: The polynomial path is introduced for the calculation of liquid state free energies. The well-characterized SPC, TIP4P, and MCY water models were used to demonstrate its efficiency, as well as its range of applicability in conjunction with Monte Carlo computer simulations using thermodynamic integration based on Gaussian quadratures. The technique employed is compared with the slow-growth method (another variant of thermodynamic integration), the perturbation method, and the use of the grand-canonical ensemble.

Notizen: The free energy gradient or Hessian of a molecule interacting with a liquid represented by a dielectric continuum is derived in the self-consistent reaction field formalism. An ellipsoidal approximation of the cavity is proposed with an algorithm to automatically define the ellipsoid from the nuclear coordinates of the atoms. With this approximation, geometry optimization of the solvated molecule becomes very fast. This method has been implemented in some standard ab initio or semiempirical computational codes. As a first test of the method, full geometry optimization of formamide in a high dielectric constant medium reveals that the CPU time needed for one optimization cycle is less than 3% longer for a solvated species than for the corresponding free molecule.

Notizen: The geometry of acryloyl fluoride was optimized completely at the RHF/6-31G* level of theory at 10 points on the theoretical potential energy curve for internal rotation. The energies obtained were used to determine a six term cosine expansion of the torsional potential energy function. This function was then refined using the experimental torsional transition frequencies in the s-trans and s-cis wells in conjunction with the geometrical parameters optimized at the RHF/6-31G* level. The effective potential function obtained is compared with previous results. The necessity of accounting for relaxation of the geometry upon internal rotation is stressed. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Finite-difference Poisson-Boltzmann (FDPB) methods allow a fast and accurate calculations of the reaction field (charge-solvent) energies for molecular systems. Unfortunately, the energy in the FDPB calculations includes the self-energies and the finite-difference approximation to the Coulombic energies as well as the reaction field energy. A second finite-difference calculation, in a uniform dielectric, is therefore necesssary to eliminate these contributions. In this article we describe a rapid and accurate method to calculate the self energy and finite-difference Coulombic energies in a uniform dielectric thus eliminating the need for a second finite-difference calculation. The computational savings for this method range from a factor of 4 for a typical protein to a factor of 103 for small molecules. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Simulation data from an off-lattice polymer model are compared with data from the Rouse model. The polymer model is built of sequentially connected rigid monomer units that represent the amide planes of a protein backbone. The time propagation of the dynamics of the polymer model is performed by a Monte Carlo method. The elementary Monte Carlo steps correspond to local confomational changes in a window of three consecutive monomer units. The time autocorrelation functions of end-to-end distances from segments within the linear chain molecule are considered in detail. Both models exhibit a stretched exponential decay pattern. A comparison of the data from the Rouse model and the computer simulation provide an estimate of the time unit of 15 ps for a full scan of the algorithm for local conformational changes along the chain. With a conservative estimate of the parameters governing the Rouse model this time unit is four orders of magnitude longer than the elementary time step of a conventional computer simulation of polymer dynamics based upon the classical equations of motion for all atoms. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A bond and group equivalent scheme that allows the calculation of heats of formation for carboxylic acids and esters from ab initio 6-31G* energies has been developed. For a group of 16 compounds, the rms error for the calculated heats of formation was 0.64 kcal/mol. Heats of formation have been predicted for an additional seven compounds for which the experimental values are either unknown or suspect. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A semi-empirical NDDO method, generalized from a similar scheme at the CNDO/2 level developed previously, is presented to treat very large molecules. The extended molecular system is divided into a relatively small subsystem where substantial chemical changes take place and an environment remaining more-or-less unperturbed during the process. Expanding the wave function on an atomic hybrid basis an SCF procedure is performed for the subsystem in the field of the iteratively determined electronic distribution of the environment. A computer program has been written for the IBM RISC System/6000 530 computer and several test calculations were done for a variety of large classical molecules, like substituted aliphatic hydrocarbons, water oligomers, and a heptapeptide. Protonation energies, proton transfer potential curves, rotational barriers, atomic net charges, and HOMO and LUMO energies, as computed by the exact version of the NDDO method, are fairly well reproduced by our approximation if the subsystem is appropriately defined. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The affinity of a ligand for a receptor is usually expressed in terms of the dissociation constant (Ki) of the drug-receptor complex, conveniently measured by the inhibition of radioligand binding. However, a ligand can be an antagonist, a partial agonist, or a full agonist, a property largely independent of its receptor affinity. This property can be quantitated as intrinsic activity (1A), which can range from 0 for a full antagonist to 1 for a full agonist. Although quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) methods have been applied to the prediction of receptor affinity with considerable success, the prediction of IA, even qualitatively, has rarely been attempted. Because most traditional QSAR methods are limited to congeneric series, and there are often major structural differences between agonists and antagonists, this lack of success in predicting IA is understandable. To overcome this limitation, we used the method of comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA), which, unlike traditional Hansch analysis, permits the inclusion of structurally dissimilar compounds in a single QSAR model. A structurally diverse set of 5-hydroxytryptamine1A (5-HT1A) receptor ligands, with literature IA data (determined by the inhibition of 5-HT sensitive forskolin-stimulated adenylate cyclase), was used to develop a 3-D QSAR model correlating intrinsic activity with molecular structure properties of 5HT1A receptor ligands. This CoMFA model had a crossvalidated r2 of 0.481, five components and final conventional r2 of 0.943. The receptor model suggests that agonist and antagonist ligands can share parts of a common binding site on the receptor, with a primary agonist binding region that is also occupied by antagonists and a secondary binding site accommodating the excess bulk present in the sidechains of many antagonists and partial agonists. The CoMFA steric field graph clearly shows that agonists tend to be “flatter” (more coplanar) than antagonists, consistent with the difference between the 5-HT1A agonist and antagonist pharmacophores proposed by Hibert and coworkers. The CoMFA electrostatic field graph suggests that, in the region surrounding the essential protonated aliphatic amino group, the positive molecular electrostatic potential may be weaker in antagonists as compared to agonists. Together, the steric and electrostatic maps suggest that in the secondary binding site region increased hydrophobic binding may enhance antagonist activity. These results demonstrate that CoMFA is capable of generating a statistically crossvalidated 3-D QSAR model that can successfully distinguish between agonist and antagonist 5-HT1A ligands. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time this or any other QSAR method has been successfully applied to the correlation of structure with IA rather than potency or affinity. The analysis has suggested various structural features associated with agonist and antagonist behaviors of 5-HT1A ligands and thus should assist in the future design of drugs that act via 5-HT1A receptors. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Four semiempirical methods (AM1, MNDO, PM3, and MINDO/3) are used to calculate the deformation angles of [n]paracyclophanes and their Dewar benzene isomers for n = 3… 10. The results obtained by all these methods are in good agreement with data from X-ray studies. We have determined the strain energies that, in both series of compounds, are due to two components: (1) the strain energy of deformation of the cycle (aromatic or Dewar Benzene skeletons) and (2) the strain energy of the oligomethylene chain. In [6]paracyclophane, the strain energy [SEring(MNDO) ≍ 32.9 kcal/mol] almost compensates the resonance energy (Eresonance ≈ 36 kcal/mol) so that its chemical properties are closer to alkenes than to benzenic compounds. To better reproduce the enthalpy of the valence isomerization [n]Dewar bezene → [n]paracyclophane, which is poorly calculated with these methods, a correction is proposed and the reaction enthalpy of [6]paracyclophane is estimated to be about ΔHr ≈ 15 ± 15 kcal/mol. It is found that MNDO and MINDO/3 need the smallest corrections, but MNDO leads to better geometries than MINDO/3. In conclusion, MNDO seems to be the best technique for further studies of these compounds. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Our recently proposed scheme for including aqueous solvation free energies in parameterized NDDO SCF models is extended to the Parameterized Model 3 semiempirical Hamiltonian. The solvation model takes accurate account of the hydrophobic effect for hydrocarbons, as well as electric polarization of the solvent, the free energy of cavitation, and dispersion interactions. Eight heteroatoms are included (along with H and C), and the new model is parameterized accurately for the water molecule itself, which allows meaningful treatments of specifically hydrogen bonded water molecules. The unphysical partial charges on nitrogen atoms predicted by the Parameterized Model 3 Hamiltonian limit the accuracy of the predicted solvation energies for some compounds containing nitrogen, but the model may be very useful for other systems, especially those for which PM3 is preferred over AM1 for the solute properties of the particular system under study. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The particular expression that relates the first Mori coefficients of the solvent particles with the solute particles as a function of their masses m1 and m2 is generalized to the case of the solute particle also having a different volume. The resulting density relationship, in terms of the mass factor M(m2) and coupling constants CD, is also valid for the second Mori coefficients and for two- and three-dimensional system. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A distribution of conformations of heptaalanine is obtained using a new Monte Carlo (MC) method that grows the chain atom by atom. Resulting configurations are energy minimized and a detailed analysis is performed of the minimum-energy conformers using a method of classification that partitions φψ space. The MC-generated configurations are compared with those generated from high-temperature molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. It is found that the new method generates a wide distribution of low-energy conformers at least 10 times more quickly than the MD. An analysis of the generated energy minima demonstrates that they can be divided into clusters in the space defined by the five pairs of φ - ψ angles of the inner residues. The space occupied by the minima populating each cluster is restricted. © 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: We consider the tree search problem for the recurrence relation that appears in the evaluation of molecular integrals over Cartesian Gaussian basis functions. A systematic way of performing tree search is shown. By applying the result of tree searching to the LRL2 method of Lindh, Ryu, and Liu (LRL) (J. Chem. Phys., 95, 5889 1991), which is an auxiliary function-based method, we obtain significant reductions of the floating point operations (FLOPS) counts in the K4 region. The resulting FLOPS counts in the K4 region are comparable up to [dd|dd] angular momentum cases to the LRL1 method of LRL, currently the method requiring least FLOPS for [dd|dd] and higher angular momentum basis functions. For [ff|ff], [gg|gg], [hh|hh], and [ii|ii] cases, the required FLOPS are 24, 40, 51, and 59%, respectively, less than the LRL1 method in the K4 region. These are the best FLOPS counts available in the literature for high angular momentum cases. Also, there will be no overhead in either the K2 or K0 region in implementing the present scheme. This should lead to more efficient codes of integral evaluations for higher angular momentum cases than any other existing codes. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A method is proposed to perform computer simulations of protein dynamics in the long-time regime. The method is based upon a Monte Carlo technique. The only molecular degrees of freedom considered are bond rotations. All other degrees of freedom including the amide plane torsions are kept rigid. These constraints approximately account for all interactions related to chemical bonding. An individual Monte Carlo step adopts the Go and Scheraga algorithm where local conformational changes in a small window of the protein backbone are performed. By using correlated rotations, the conformation of residues outside the window remains invariant. To test the reliability of the method, the nonbonded interactions are turned off in the present application. Exact statistical averages are compared with values obtained from data of computer simulation involving 2 × 106 scans of the window along the protein backbone. Time is related to the number of scans of the window along the protein backbone. End-to-end distance autocorrelation functions decay to 1/e of its initial value in about 103-104 scans of the window algorithm. Time decay follows a stretched exponential Kohlrausch decay law. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The antitumor drug cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) (cisplatin) binds preferentially to GpG and ApG sequences of DNA, forming N7,N7 intrastrand chelates. Molecular modeling of the intrastrand adducts have been handicapped, so far, by the lack of force-field data describing the Pt-guanine and Pt-adenine binding. We used ab initio calculations with relativistic pseudopotentials to evaluate three important parameters for the platinum-adenine model complex [Pt(NH3)3(Ade)]2+: (1) the force constant for the Pt—N7 bond bending out of the adenine plane; (2) the energy profile for the torsion about Pt—N7; (3) a set of fractional atomic charges that reproduce the ab initio potential for a number of space points placed around the adduct. A population analysis and comparative study on the tetrammine complex [Pt(NH3)4]2+ have shown that for platinum adenine is a better σ-donor than NH3, but its capacity as a π-acceptor is weak. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A procedure is reported for the prediction of dense crystal structures of C-, H-, N-, O-, and F-containing organic compounds in the primitive triclinic, monoclinic, and orthorhombic space groups with Z ≤ 4. The crystal environments of molecules in 242 crystal structures have been analyzed to determine the common coordination sphere pattens. This led to the development of the MOLPAK (MOLecular PAcKing) program, which uses a rigid-body molecular structure probe to build packing arrangements (possible crystal structures) in the various space groups. A MOLPAK search, which involves the investigation of all unique orientations of a central molecule and the construction of the appropriate coordination patterns about the central molecule, provides a 3-D map of minimum unit cell volume as a function of the orientation of the central molecule. MOLPAK uses a repulsion-only potential and a preset threshold to place molecules in contact with each other. The 5-10 smallest volume packing arrangements from a search are subjected to a lattice energy minimization refinement with the WMIN program to yield possible crystal structures. The results are described from the analyses of several known compounds starting with the crystal molecular structures as the MOLPAK search probes in the P1, P21, P21/c, and P212121 space groups. In addition, several examples are given in which the search probes were created by AM1 geometry optimization of preliminary molecular models. More extensive data are given in supplementary tables. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A fully functional parallel version of the molecular dynamics (MD) module of AMBER3a has been implemented. Procedures parallelized include the calculation of the long-range nonbonded Coulomb and Lennard-Jones interactions, generation of the pairlist, intramolecular bond, angle, dihedral, 1-4 nonbonded interaction terms, coordinate restraints, and the SHAKE bond constraint algorithm. As far as we can determine, this is the first published description where a distributed-memory MIMD parallel implementation of the SHAKE algorithm has been designed to treat not only hydrogen-containing bonds but also all heavy-atom bonds, and where “shaken” crosslinks are supported as well. We discuss the subtasking and partitioning of an MD time-step, load balancing the nonbonded evaluations, describe in algorithmic detail how parallelization of SHAKE was accomplished, and present speedup, efficiency, and benchmarking results achieved when this hypercube adaptation of the MD module AMBER was applied to several variant molecular systems. Results are presented for speedup and efficiency obtained on the nCUBE machine, using up to 128 processors, as well as benchmarks for performance comparisons with the CRAY YMP and FPS522 vector machines. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: We report the development of a new approximate method of calculating molecular surface areas. Our technique is based upon the method of Sharake and Rupley but incorporates several major advances. First, we represent the state of surface points as bits in a bit string so we can utilize Boolean operations to simultaneously turn off multiple test points in one Boolean AND operation. Second, we use a series of Boolean mask look-up tables to reduce the time complexity of the calculation of molecular surface area down to the same magnitude as doing a potential energy evaluation. When we use a 256 surface point sphere for all of the atoms in BPTI, a 454 nonhydrogen atom protein, and a 1.4-Å solvent probe, we in general underestimate the total solvent-accessible surface area (SASA) by approximately 1.25% with a correlation coefficient of 0.9990 over a wide range of conformations. The average CPU time required to calculate the SASA of a BPTI conformer is 0.58 s on an SGI 4D/220 workstation. We also describe a method by which we can calculate an approximate finite difference SASA gradient for BPTI in 0.79 of CPU time. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A method is proposed for calculating the forces in path integral theory and tested on semiclassic systems. It takes the range of the classic and quantum interactions into account and uses a second table within the neighbors table for the nearest neighbors. This method is found to be much more efficient than either the standard direct method or the traditional neighbors table, the efficiency increasing with the size of the system. The method can also be applied to clusters whose interaction centers are much farther apart than the distances between two consecutive members of the cluster. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Parallelization of the SCF method for closed-shell molecules on the highly parallel transputer-based system PARAM is described. The parallelization has been implemented on three different hardware and software environments: (1) a network of bare 64 transputers; (2) configuration 1 plus a back-end file system (BFS); and (3) configuration 2 with one INTEL i860 processor. The evaluation of electron repulsion integrals (ERIs) and setting up of the Fock matrix is carried out in parallel on 64 nodes using minimal communication strategies. A good load balance is achieved for ERI evaluation with the help of bounds, local symmetry features, and the shell concept, as well as a data randomization technique, resulting into almost linear speedup (for ERI evaluation). In configurations 2 and 3, BFS is used for parallel storage and retrieval of ERIs. Further, in 3 matrix operations are implemented as remote procedure calls on the i860 processor. Routine techniques of level shifting and extrapolation are used for accelerating SCF convergence. The resulting package, INDMOL, has been tested for some randomly selected molecules having up to 255 contractions. Using configuration 3, a factor of 2 to 5 in computation time is obtained over 1, for the systems for which the ERIs cannot be stored in the distributed core memory. In summary, a heterogeneous system, as in configuration 3, can indeed be optimally exploited for programming peculiar diverse requirements of the SCF procedure. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: One of the features of the polypeptide backbone is that it represents a flexible chain that contains almost rigid CO—NH peptide bonds. One may try to substitute one or more such bonds by another relatively rigid unit to maintain the overall conformational properties of the backbone and at the same time modify some other properties of the molecule (“pseudopeptide”), such as the ability to form hydrogen bonds. By a detailed conformational analysis, it is shown that the carbon—carbon double bond is quite isosteric with the peptide bond and for this reason suitable for such a substitution. This is accomplished by applying molecular mechanics in calculation of the φ, ψ maps for pseudopeptide analogs of the N-acetyl-Ala-NHMe molecule. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: We present analytical expressions to calculate the gradient of the water-accessible surface area of proteins with respect to Cartesian coordinates and dihedral angles. A detailed mathematical analysis leads to corrected equations for the gradient calculation used previously in the ANAREA program. To study the hydrophobic effect of solvent-protein interactions, our expressions have been implemented to further improve the program package FANTOM. We used this version of FANTOM to minimize the ECEPP/2 and the hydrophobic energy of tendamistat. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The electrostatic potentials of 21 molecules containing different functional groups has been computed at the ab initio RHF/6-31G* level on a series of solvent accessible surfaces and compared with MNDO, AM1, and PM3-derived pontentials. We analyzed in detail the distribution of electrostatic potentials on the surfaces around their maximum and minimum values and found out that consistently MNDO gives results similar to ab initio potentials. The actual values of the MNDO electrostatic potentials show a systematic deviation from the “correct” results, but the pattern of the MEP distribution on the surface is similar to that of the ab initio results. In contrast, PM3 fails in some cases to give even the correct number or distribution of “hot spots” of potential (low MEP) on the surface. AM1 behaves somewhere between these two semiempirical methods. As a conclusion, MNDO would be suggested as the best approach to analyses requiring a fast and efficient mapping of electrostatic potentials on simplified models of molecular surfaces. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: We describe, test, and apply a new computational algorithm for generating protein loop conformations subject to distance and secondary structure constraints. The algorithm is based upon initial scaling and subsequent relaxation of covalent bond lengths. The scaling-relaxation procedure needs no additional energy terms and can be readily incorporated into existing molecular modeling packages. The algorithm uses an all-atom energy function from the outset in a straightforward way so that about 60% of the generated loop conformations are free of severe distortions of covalent bond lengths and angles. An extensive application to the major loop conformations of TFIIIA-type zinc fingers (Zif268 and ADR1) is presented, as well as preliminary calculations on hypervariable loops of two immunoglobulins (MCPC603 and Bence-Jones). © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A new index suitable for computing molecular similarity based upon the similarity of molecular properties such as electrostatic potentials or electrostatic fields is presented in two forms. For one form of the present index, general conditions are established for which a linear measure of similarity is obtained. An illustrative example is provided in which the electrostatic field and electrostatic potential of guanine obtained from different wave functions are compared. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Using the MM2-87 program and parameter set, conformational analyses have been performed on cocaine (1), the potent analog 2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-fluorophenyl)tropane (CFT, 2), and a group of dopamine reuptake blockers that contain two phenyl rings. The latter includes LU 19-005 (3), a 1-amino-4-phenyltetralin (4), a hexahydropyrrolo[2,1-a]isoquinoline (5), diclofensine (6), and a hexahydro[1,2-b]pyridine (7). Using different values for the dielectric constant, the global minimum of 1 and 2 is a conformer in which there is a favorable electrostatic interaction between the ammonium hydrogen and the carbonyl of the carbomethoxy group. The N-methyl groups in 1 and 2 are found to strongly prefer the equatorial position of the piperidine ring. These results were also related to four crystal structures of 1 and its close derivatives. Compounds 3-7 are found to have a common conformation that was used to define the pharmacophore for dopamine reuptake blockers including the required orientation of the ammonium hydrogen. The pharmacophore provides an explanation for why the tertiary amine analogs of 3 and 4 are less potent than the secondary amines because the added N-methyl group occupies the position required for the ammonium hydrogen. This explanation, however, does not work for 7, in which the tertiary amine is again less active than the secondary amine. However, this last series appears to have a number of anomalous features. Superposition of 2 with the pharmacophore suggests that its carbomethoxy may occupy the same region of the receptor as the second phenyl ring in compounds 3-7. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The defects in atomic monopole models of molecular charge distribution have been analyzed for several model-blocked peptides and compared with accurate quantum chemical values. The results indicate that the angular characteristics of the molecular electrostatic potential around functional groups capable of forming hydrogen bonds can be considerably distorted within various models relying upon isotropic atomic charges only. It is shown that these defects can be corrected by augmenting the atomic point charge models by cumulative atomic multipole moments (CAMMs). Alternatively, sets of off-center atomic point charges could be automatically derived from respective multipoles, providing approximately equivalent corrections. For the first time, correlated atomic multipoles have been calculated for N-acetyl, N′-methylamide-blocked derivatives of glycine, alanine, cysteine, threonine, leucine, lysine, and serine using the MP2 method. The role of the correlation effects in the peptide molecular charge distribution are discussed. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The program AQUARIUS2 calculates probable positions for water molecules within the first hydration shell of any protein for which atomic coordinates are known. Like its predecessor, AQUARIUS, it uses a knowledge of water molecules sites from crystallographically determined protein structures. Energy calculations are not employed. It differs substantially from the original program in that a 3-D probability map (for solvent sites) is generated around the surface of the protein instead of the previously used discrete points. The accuracy of the program has been gauged by comparison with experimentally derived water molecule positions for proteins not used in the knowledge base of the program. It has also been tested by combining the probability density maps with crystallographically determined electron density maps for the protein porphobilinogen deaminase. This procedure filters the most likely solvent electron density peaks from the background noise and has been used in the determination of the solvent structure around the protein nerve growth factor. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Net atomic charges are derived from a least-squares fitting to electrostatic potentials at atomic sites. The method treats atoms in the molecule as having spherically averaged Hartree-Fock densities, the atomic densities overlapping with one another. The method has the advantage of best reproducing the electrostatic potentials at the atomic nuclei and avoiding the arbitrariness in choosing the points used in the fitting. We have written a FORTRAN program, CHELPN92 (Z. Su, Chemistry Department, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 1992), based on the method and applied it to deuterated benzene, l-alanine, d,l-histidine, 2-methyl-4-nitroaniline, and deuterated pyridinium-1-dicyanomethylide using the molecular geometry and electrostatic potentials from analysis of accurate X-ray diffraction data. The derived charges are used to calculate the molecular dipole moments. While the charges from this method are in general significantly different from those from the kappa refinement [P. Coppens, T.N. Guru Row, P. Leung, E.D. Stevens, P.J. Becker, and Y.W. Yang, Acta Cryst. A, 35, 63 (1979)], the dipole moments obtained with the new method agree well with those from the kappa refinement. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Several methods are available in the literature for the conformational analysis of small molecules. Each of these methods has some advantages and some disadvantages. Also, each of these methods may be expected to perform better or worse on different types of molecules. There is no clear calibration of each of these methods against a “standardized” set of molecules available in the literature. Such a reference work would be useful to the community because it would allow the choice of methods to be based on some facts. We attempted to provide a start to such a calibration in this article with an examination of the SYBYL SEARCH method. Methods for evaluating the performance of this method are described in detail and will be applied to all other available conformational analysis methods in future papers. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The problem of quantifying similarity between crystal structures is transformed into the problem of comparing the associated X-ray powder diagrams. A smooth similarity measure between two powder diagrams, termed a “fold,” is defined. In contrast to conventional comparison methods, the introduced method is still applicable when the peaks of the spectra to be compared have no overlap. The main areas of application of the method are the construction of a molecular crystal structure when only the experimental powder diagram is available and the analysis of possible crystal packings predicted on the basis of molecular information only. A suitable empirical parameterization of the fold has been derived from a large set of experimental and force-field-generated crystals. The analysis of the outcome of an ab initio packing of a flexible molecule is given as an example. The algorithmic details of the method are given as a FORTRAN 77 code. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: We describe a new method for de novo design of molecules that bind to protein active sites. The method, CONCEPTS (Creation of Novel Compounds by Evaluation of Particles at Target Sites), places a group of atom-like particles in the site. The particles are free to move within the site to improve binding to the protein. A key innovation of this technique is that covalent connections are made among the particles in a stochastic and dynamically reversible manner. These changes in the topology are either accepted or rejected depending on their ability to improve the total energy of the enzyme-inhibitor complex. The method is applied to two test systems: The FK506 binding protein (FKBP-12) and HIV-1 aspartyl protease. In both cases, we are able to predict, de novo, drugs that have striking similarities to known potent inhibitors and that can successfully be used to generate “hits” of the known inhibitors from a data base. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: The separation of the short- and long-range terms in the potentials generated by pairs of Slater functions is reformulated in the context of the Gauss transform method. Analytic expressions of the long-range potentials (in closed form) are derived for equal exponents and generalized (as expansion series) for different exponents. Additionally, the representation of these potentials from small sets of charges or lowest-order multipoles is examined, paying special attention to their values and optimal positions. Finally, numerical tests of the formal developments are presented. It is concluded that the long-range three- and four-center integrals can be calculated with high accuracy in a simple and relatively inexpensive manner. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: To compare the GROMOS force field with one designed by Ha et al., molecular dynamics simulations of α-D-glucose anhydrate and monohydrate crystals were performed. Also, the long-range interactions were calculated both with a cutoff approximation and with Ewald summations. The results are compared with results obtained experimentally by neutron and X-ray diffraction. The force-field parameters had been optimized with the cutoff approximation; this apparently led to worse results when the Ewald summations were used. However, in all simulations the symmetry was roughly preserved and the mean atomic coordinates and thermal parameters, bond angles, and dihedrals without hydrogen atoms were rather well reproduced. The dihedrals with hydrogen atoms exhibited conformational transitions, which resulted in a disordered hydrogen bonding scheme. In general, the GROMOS force field performed better than the Ha force field. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Lithium parameters have been optimized for Stewart's standard PM3 method. The average deviation of the heats of formation calculated for 18 reference compounds is 6.2 kcal/mol from the experimental or high-level ab initio data; the average deviation with Li/MNDO is 18.9 kcal/mol. The average error in bond lengths is also reduced by a factor of two to three. Ionization potentials and dipole moments are reproduced with comparable accuracy than Li/MNDO. However, the mean deviation for the heats of formation of both methods increases when being applied to other systems, especially to small inorgnic molecules. The applicability of the new parameter set is demonstrated further for various compounds not included in the reference set, for the calculation of the activation barriers of several lithiation reactions, as well as for the estimation of oligomerization energies of methyl lithium (including the tetramer). Li/PM3 gives reliable results even for large dimeric complexes, like [{4-(CH3CR)C5H4N}Li]2, containing TMEDA or THF as coligands and reproduces the haptotropic interaction between Li+ and π-systems (e.g., in benzyl lithium) as well as the relative energies and structural features of compounds with “hypervalent” atoms (e.g., in lithiated sulfones). © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: We apply a recently developed method, the multicanonical algorithm, to the problem of tertiary structure prediction of peptides and proteins. As a simple example to test the effectiveness of the algorithm, metenkephalin is studied and the ergodicity problem, or multiple-minima problem, is shown to be overcome by this algorithm. The lowest-energy conformation obtained agrees with that determined by other efficient methods such as Monte Carlo simulated annealing. The superiority of the present method to simulated annealing lies in the fact that the relationship to the canonical ensemble remains exactly controlled. Once the multicanonical parameters are determined, only one simulation run is necessary to obtain the lowest-energy conformation and further the results of this one run can be used to calculate various thermodynamic quantities at any temperature. The latter point is demonstrated by the calculation of the average potential energy and specific heat as functions of temperature. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Optimized geometries and total energies for the conformers of 3,6-dihydro-1,2-dithiin (2) and 3,6-dihydro-1,2-dioxin (3) were calculated at several ab initio MO levels: RHF/3-21G(*), RHF/6-31G*, MP2/6-31G*, and MP2/6-31G*/ /RHF/3-21G(*). For the dioxin, in addition to the above levels the corresponding nonextended basis sets ab initio methods were also carried out. The dithiin results are compared with those of simple disulfanes, HSSH and (CH3)2S2, whose optimized geometries agree closely with the observed structures, which is the gauche (C2 symmetry). For the disulfanes, the gauche geometries from RHF/3-21G(*) are in good agreement with the observed structure while the RHF/3-21G results best fit the dioxin. Pertinent structural data at the RHF/3-21G(*) for the half-chair (C2) dithiin are: bond lengths, —SS—, —CS—, —CC=, and —C=C—, 2.050, 1.817, 1.515, and 1.317 Å, respectively; bond angles, CSS, =CCS, and C=CS, 98.0, 114.2, and 127.8°, respectively; CSSC dihedral angle of 63.2°; and twist angle of 36.5°. The total energy for half-chair dithiin at MP2/6-31G*//RHF/3-21G(*) is less than the planar (C2v) and the half-boat (Cs) structures by 69.67 and 29.05 kJ/mol, respectively. The calculated structural data (vs. observed) at RHF/3-21G for the half-chair dioxin are: bond lengths, —OO—, —CO—, —CC=, and C=C, 1.464 (1.463), 1.454, 1.509, and 1.313 Å (1.338 Å), respectively; bond angles, COO, =CCO, and C=CO, 105.0, 109.8 (110.3), and 120.7° (119.9°), respectively; COOC dihedral angle of 79.7° (80 ± 2°); and twist angle of 39.0 (38.3°). The total energy for half-chair dioxin at MP2/6-31G//RHF/3-21G is less than the planar and the half-boat structures by 70.35 and 42.85 kJ/mol, respectively. The total energies calculated at the extended basis sets (*) ab initio levels for the C2 symmetry dioxin are much lower than those of the nonextended basis sets. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: A common problem in the solution of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation using finite difference methods is the self-energy of the system, also known as the grid energy. Because atoms are typically modeled as a point charge, the infinite self-energy of a point charge is likewise modeled. In this article, a simple, alternate treatment of atomic charge is described where each atom is represented as a sphere of uniform charge. Unlike the point charge model, this method converges as the grid spacing is reduced. The uniform charge model generates the same electrostatic field outside the atoms. In addition, the use of fine grids reduces the variations in the potential due to variations in the position of atoms relative to the grid. Calculations of Born ion solvation energies, small-molecule solvation energies, and the electrostatic field of superoxide dismutase are used to demonstrate that this method yields the same results as the point charge model. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: An algorithm is introduced that tests whether a proposed elementary reaction can be realized within a specified number of cleavages and formations of covalent bonds. This is related to the problem of computing the minimum chemical distance of a given stoichiometry, but differs from it in important ways that are exploited in the algorithm design. One application of the algorithm is as a filter in MECHEM - a computer aid for the elucidation of reaction pathways. In that application, reaction steps implying more changes to covalent bonds than a given threshold are ruled implausible, and in practice such tests need to be carried out many thousands of times. Future applications of the algorithm can be expected because the question addressed is a fundamental one: What elementary reactions can occur? © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Notizen: Computer methods for analytic surface calculations of molecular systems suffer from numerical instabilities and are CPU time consuming. In this article, we present proposals toward the solution of both problems. Singularities arise when nearly collinear triples of neighboring atoms or multiple vertices are encountered during the calculation. Topological decisions in analytic surface calculation algorithms (accessibility of vertices and arcs) are based upon the comparison of distances or angles. If two such numbers are nearly equal, then currently used computer programs may not resolve this ambiguity correctly and can subsequently fail. In this article, modifications in the analytic surface calculation algorithm are described that recognize singularities automatically and treat them appropriately without restarting parts of the computation. The computing time required to execute these alterations is minimal. The basic modification consists in defining an accuracy limit within which two values may be assumed as equal. The search algorithm has been reformulated to reduce the computational effort. A new set of formulas makes it possible to avoid mostly the extraction of square roots. Tests for small-and medium-sized intersection circles and for pairs of vertices with small vertex height help recognize fully buried circles and vertex pairs at an early stage. The new program can compute the complete topology of the surface and accessible surface area of the protein crambin in 1.50-4.29 s (on a single R3000 processor of an SGI 4D/480) depending on the compactness of the conformation where the limits correspond to the fully extended or fully folded chain, respectively. The algorithm, implemented in a computer program, will be made available on request. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.