Electrostatics, molecular dynamics

London theory permits calculation of the attenuation of poling-induced order due to the effective field contribution of chromophore-chromophore interactions attenuating the total electrostatic field (poling + chromophore-chromophore) at a chromophore. Electrostatic-molecular dynamic calculations facilitate consideration of nontransient aggregation phenomena reflecting chromophore-chromophore interactions that are too large to be disrupted by thermal effects (molecular collisions). 

Procacci P, Darden T A, Paci E and Marchi M 1997 ORAC a molecular dynamics program to simulate complex molecular systems with realistic electrostatic interactions J. Comput. Chem. 18 1848-62... 

Procacci P, March M and Martyna G J 1998 Electrostatic calculations and multiple time scales in molecular dynamics simulation of flexible molecular systems J. Chem. Phys. 108 8799-803... 

Procacci, P., Darden, T., Marchi, M., A very fast molecular dynamics method to simulate biomolecular systems with realistic electrostatic interactions. J. Phys. Chem. 100 (1996) 10464-10468. 

Belhadj,M., Alper, H.A., Levy, R.M. Molecular dynamics simulations of wa ter with Ewald summation for the long-range electrostatic interactions. Chem. Phys. Lett. 179 (1991) 13-20. 

M. Eichinger, H. Grubmiiller, H. Heller, and P. Tavan. FAMUSAMM An algorithm for rapid evaluation of electrostatic interaction in molecular dynamics simulations. J. Comp. Chem., 18 1729-1749, 1997. 

Ligand-Protein Interactions The energy of formation of ligand-protein contacts can be computed as a sum of non-bonded (Lennard-Jones and electrostatic) terms similar to those used in a molecular dynamics simulation. 

In an atomic level simulation, the bond stretch vibrations are usually the fastest motions in the molecular dynamics of biomolecules, so the evolution of the stretch vibration is taken as the reference propagator with the smallest time step. The nonbonded interactions, including van der Waals and electrostatic forces, are the slowest varying interactions, and a much larger time-step may be used. The bending, torsion and hydrogen-bonding forces are treated as intermediate time-scale interactions. 

NAMD [7] was born of frustration with the maintainability of previous locally developed parallel molecular dynamics codes. The primary goal of being able to hand the program down to the next generation of developers is reflected in the acronym NAMD Not (just) Another Molecular Dynamics code. Specific design requirements for NAMD were to run in parallel on the group s then recently purchased workstation cluster [8] and to use the fast multipole algorithm [9] for efficient full electrostatics evaluation as implemented in DPMTA [10]. 

Parallel molecular dynamics codes are distinguished by their methods of dividing the force evaluation workload among the processors (or nodes). The force evaluation is naturally divided into bonded terms, approximating the effects of covalent bonds and involving up to four nearby atoms, and pairwise nonbonded terms, which account for the electrostatic, dispersive, and electronic repulsion interactions between atoms that are not covalently bonded. The nonbonded forces involve interactions between all pairs of particles in the system and hence require time proportional to the square of the number of atoms. Even when neglected outside of a cutoff, nonbonded force evaluations represent the vast majority of work involved in a molecular dynamics simulation. 

In periodic boimdary conditions, one possible way to avoid truncation of electrostatic interaction is to apply the so-called Particle Mesh Ewald (PME) method, which follows the Ewald summation method of calculating the electrostatic energy for a number of charges [27]. It was first devised by Ewald in 1921 to study the energetics of ionic crystals [28]. PME has been widely used for highly polar or charged systems. York and Darden applied the PME method already in 1994 to simulate a crystal of the bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) by molecular dynamics [29]. 

The Merck molecular force field (MMFF) is one of the more recently published force fields in the literature. It is a general-purpose method, particularly popular for organic molecules. MMFF94 was originally intended for molecular dynamics simulations, but has also seen much use for geometry optimization. It uses five valence terms, one of which is an electrostatic term, and one cross tenn. 

Before running a molecular dynamics simulation with solvent and a molecular mechanics method, choose the appropriate dielectric constant. You specify the type and value of the dielectric constant in the Force Field Options dialog box. The dielectric constant defines the screening effect of solvent molecules on nonbonded (electrostatic) interactions. 

Once you have calculated an ab initio or a semi-empirical wave function via a single point calculation, geometry optimization, molecular dynamics or vibrations, you can plot the electrostatic potential surrounding the molecule, the total electronic density, the spin density, one or more molecular orbitals /i, and the electron densities of individual orbitals You can examine orbital energies and select orbitals for plotting from an orbital energy level diagram. 

The concentration of salt in physiological systems is on the order of 150 mM, which corresponds to approximately 350 water molecules for each cation-anion pair. Eor this reason, investigations of salt effects in biological systems using detailed atomic models and molecular dynamic simulations become rapidly prohibitive, and mean-field treatments based on continuum electrostatics are advantageous. Such approximations, which were pioneered by Debye and Huckel [11], are valid at moderately low ionic concentration when core-core interactions between the mobile ions can be neglected. Briefly, the spatial density throughout the solvent is assumed to depend only on the local electrostatic poten-... 

A molecular dynamics force field is a convenient compilation of these data (see Chapter 2). The data may be used in a much simplified fonn (e.g., in the case of metric matrix distance geometry, all data are converted into lower and upper bounds on interatomic distances, which all have the same weight). Similar to the use of energy parameters in X-ray crystallography, the parameters need not reflect the dynamic behavior of the molecule. The force constants are chosen to avoid distortions of the molecule when experimental restraints are applied. Thus, the force constants on bond angle and planarity are a factor of 10-100 higher than in standard molecular dynamics force fields. Likewise, a detailed description of electrostatic and van der Waals interactions is not necessary and may not even be beneficial in calculating NMR strucmres. 

Molecular mechanics and electrostatics calculations have both played an important role in studying electron transfer proteins. Molecular mechanics calculations of these proteins use the same techniques (molecular dynamics, energy minimization) as for other proteins, although special consideration must be made in simulation conditions. 

RB Yelle, N-S Park, T Ichiye. Molecular dynamics simulations of rubredoxm from Clostridium pasteurianum Changes m structure and electrostatic potential during redox reactions. Proteins 22 154-167, 1995. 

---