CHARMm force fields energy function

Another set of early studies came from the work of Judson and coworkers [35, 36], which emphasized using GAs for search problems on small molecules and peptides, especially cyclic peptides. A dihedral angle representation was used for the peptides with values encoded as binary strings, and the energy function used the standard CHARMM force field. Mutations were implemented as bit flips and crossovers were introduced by a cut-and-paste of the strings. The small size of the system enabled a detailed investigation of the various parameters and policies chosen. In Ref. [37], a comparison between a GA and a direct search minimization was performed and showed the advantages and weaknesses of each method. As many concepts are shared between search problems on small peptides and complete proteins, these studies have contributed to subsequent attempts on full proteins. 

The CHARMm force field [20] is comprised of a series of function terms for both bonded and nonbonded energies and a set of parameters for these terms. The total energy (Ej) of the system is expressed as... 

Equation (3) defines the energy function used in the CHARMM force field ... 

Of the biomolecular force fields, AMBER [21] is considered to be transferable, whereas academic CHARMM [20] is not transferable. Considering the simplistic form of the potential energy functions used in these force fields, the extent of transferability should be considered to be minimal, as has been shown recently [52]. As stated above, the user should perform suitable tests on any novel compounds to ensure that the force field is treating the systems of interest with sufficient accuracy. 

Force-field-based scoring functions use arbitrary empirical estimates of interaction energies obtained by molecular mechanics energy functions. This simple approximation, which takes into account only enthalpic contribution often correlates well with the experiment. Solvent effects are described by atom-based solvation parameters, which are computed for the surface of both ligand and receptor which is buried upon complexation. DOCK-chemical27 and CHARMm scoring functions represent this class. 

Some formulations of the potential energy function (e.g., References 27 and 79, and AMBER, CHARMM, and DISCOVER, as well as most force fields used in small-molecule studies) include terms that allow for bond stretching and bond angle bending, that is, for flexible geometry. Hence, the terms in Eq. [1] are augmented by the expression27... 

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