Force Field Features

The force field equations for MM+, AMBER, BIO+, and OPLS are similar in the types of terms they contain bond, angle, dihedral, van derWaals, and electrostatic. There are some differences in the forms of the equations that can affect your choice of force field. 

Note The BIO+ force field is an implementation of the CHARMM (Chemistry at HARvard Macromolecular Mechanics) force field developed in the group of Martin Karplus at Harvard University. Like AMBER and OPLS, it is primarily designed to explore macromolecules. 

MMh- is unique among the force fields in the way it treats bonds and angles. Both the bond and angle terms can contain higher 

HyperChem supplements the standard MM2 force field (see References on page 106) by providing additional parameters (force constants) using two alternative schemes (see the second part of this book. Theory and Methods). This extends the range of chemical compounds that MM-t can accommodate. MM-t also provides cutoffs for calculating nonbonded interactions and periodic boundary conditions. 

Note MMh- is derived from the public domain code developed by Dr. Norman Allinger, referred to as MM2(1977), and distributed by the Quantum Chemistry Program Exchange (QCPE). The code for MMh- is not derived from Dr. Allinger s present version of code, which is trademarked MM2 . Specifically, QCMPOlO was used as a starting point for HyperChem MMh- code. The code was extensively modified and extended over several years to include molecular dynamics, switching functions for cubic stretch terms, periodic boundary conditions, superimposed restraints, a default (additional) parameter scheme, and so on. 

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The fifth and final chapter, on Parallel Force Field Evaluation, takes account of the fact that the bulk of CPU time spent in MD simulations is required for evaluation of the force field. In the first paper, BOARD and his coworkers present a comparison of the performance of various parallel implementations of Ewald and multipole summations together with recommendations for their application. The second paper, by Phillips et AL., addresses the special problems associated with the design of parallel MD programs. Conflicting issues that shape the design of such codes are identified and the use of features such as multiple threads and message-driven execution is described. The final paper, by Okunbor Murty, compares three force decomposition techniques (the checkerboard partitioning method. 

In order to represent 3D molecular models it is necessary to supply structure files with 3D information (e.g., pdb, xyz, df, mol, etc.. If structures from a structure editor are used directly, the files do not normally include 3D data. Indusion of such data can be achieved only via 3D structure generators, force-field calculations, etc. 3D structures can then be represented in various display modes, e.g., wire frame, balls and sticks, space-filling (see Section 2.11). Proteins are visualized by various representations of helices, / -strains, or tertiary structures. An additional feature is the ability to color the atoms according to subunits, temperature, or chain types. During all such operations the molecule can be interactively moved, rotated, or zoomed by the user. 

Some of the stand-alone programs mentioned above have an integrated modular 3D visualization application (e.g., ChemWindow —> SymApps, ChemSketch —> ACD/3D Viewer, ChemDraw —> Chem3D). These relatively simple viewers mostly generate the 3D geometries by force-field calculations. The basic visualization and manipulation features are also provided. Therefore, the molecular models can be visualized in various display styles, colors, shades, etc. and are scalable, movable and rotatable on the screen. 

Some General Features of Molecular Mechanics Force Fields... 

PC Model has some features that are not found in many other molecular mechanics programs. This is one of the few programs that outputs the energy given by the force field and the heat of formation and a strain energy. Atom types for describing transition structures in the MMX force field are included. There is a metal coordination option for setting up calculations with metal atoms. There are also molecular similarity and conformation search functions. 

So, consider a typical molecule such as aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), shown in Figure 1.11. Such two-dimensional drawings can be made using ChemDraw or ISlSDraw, but all the features needed to construct a molecular mechanics force field are apparent. 

An interesting feature of this force field is that it adds lone pairs to all sulfur atoms. 

Before 1980, force field and semiempircal methods (such as CNDO, MNDO, AMI, etc.) [1] were used exclusively to study sulfur-containing compounds due to the lack of computer resources and due to inefficient quantum-chemical programs. Unfortunately, these computational methods are rather hmit-ed in their reliability. The majority of the theoretical studies under this review utilized ab initio MO methods [2]. Not only ab initio MO theory is more reliable, but also it has the desirable feature of not relying on experimental parameters. As a consequence, ab initio MO methods are apphcable to any systems of interest, particularly for novel species and transition states. 

Both of the above approaches rely in most cases on classical ideas that picture the atoms and molecules in the system interacting via ordinary electrical and steric forces. These interactions between the species are expressed in terms of force fields, i.e., sets of mathematical equations that describe the attractions and repulsions between the atomic charges, the forces needed to stretch or compress the chemical bonds, repulsions between the atoms due to then-excluded volumes, etc. A variety of different force fields have been developed by different workers to represent the forces present in chemical systems, and although these differ in their details, they generally tend to include the same aspects of the molecular interactions. Some are directed more specifically at the forces important for, say, protein structure, while others focus more on features important in liquids. With time more and more sophisticated force fields are continually being introduced to include additional aspects of the interatomic interactions, e.g., polarizations of the atomic charge clouds and more subtle effects associated with quantum chemical effects. Naturally, inclusion of these additional features requires greater computational effort, so that a compromise between sophistication and practicality is required. 

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