Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol.116, No.8, 2365-2375, 2012
Structure Refinement of Protein Low Resolution Models Using the GNEIMO Constrained Dynamics Method
The challenge in protein structure prediction using homology modelling is the lack of reliable methods to refine the low resolution homology models. Unconstrained all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) does not serve well for structure refinement due to its limited conformational search. We have developed and tested the constrained MD method, based on the generalized Newton-Euler inverse mass operator (GNEIMO) algorithm for protein structure refinement. In this method, the high-frequency degrees of freedom are replaced with hard holonomic constraints and a protein is modeled as a collection of rigid body clusters connected by flexible torsional hinges. This allows larger integration time steps and enhances the conformational search space. In this work, we have demonstrated the use of torsional GNEIMO method without using any experimental data as constraints, for protein structure refinement starting from low-resolution decoy sets derived from homology methods. In the eight protein with the three decoys for reach, we observed an improvement of similar to 2 angstrom in the rmsd in coordinates to the known experimental structures of these proteines. The GNEIMO trajectories also showed enrichment in the population density of native-like conformations. In addition, we demonstrated structural refinement using a "freeze and thaw" clustering scheme with the GNEIMO framework as a viable tool for enhancing localized confirmational search. We have derived a robust protocol based on the GNEIMO replica exchange method for protein structure refinement that can be readily extended to other proteins and possibly applicable for high throughput protein structure refinement.