Equilibration, molecular dynamics

Molecular dynamics simulations of proteins often begin with a known structure (such as an X-ray diffraction structure) that you want to maintain during equilibration. Since the solvent may contain high energy hot spots, equilibration of the protein and solvent at the same time can change the protein conformation. To avoid this, select only the water molecules and run a molecular dynamics equilibration. This relaxes the water while fixing the protein structure. Then deselect the water and equilibrate the whole system. 

After 130 ps of molecular dynamics equilibration and 1(K) ps of additional run time, the deviation from the X-ray structure (Xrms) of the three subunits increased to an average of 3.1 A for the a carbons. The subunit H... 

Monte Carlo simulations generate a large number of confonnations of tire microscopic model under study that confonn to tire probability distribution dictated by macroscopic constrains imposed on tire systems. For example, a Monte Carlo simulation of a melt at a given temperature T produces an ensemble of confonnations in which confonnation with energy E. occurs witli a probability proportional to exp (- Ej / kT). An advantage of tire Monte Carlo metliod is tliat, by judicious choice of tire elementary moves, one can circumvent tire limitations of molecular dynamics techniques and effect rapid equilibration of multiple chain systems [65]. Flowever, Monte Carlo... 

A typical molecular dynamics simulation comprises an equflibration and a production phase. The former is necessary, as the name imphes, to ensure that the system is in equilibrium before data acquisition starts. It is useful to check the time evolution of several simulation parameters such as temperature (which is directly connected to the kinetic energy), potential energy, total energy, density (when periodic boundary conditions with constant pressure are apphed), and their root-mean-square deviations. Having these and other variables constant at the end of the equilibration phase is the prerequisite for the statistically meaningful sampling of data in the following production phase. 

In many molecular dynamics simulations, equilibration is a separate step that precedes data collection. Equilibration is generally necessary lo avoid introducing artifacts during the healing step an d to en su re th at the trajectory is aciii ally sim u laiin g eq u i librium properties. The period required for equilibration depends on the property of Interest and the molecular system. It may take about 100 ps for the system to approach equilibrium, but some properties are fairly stable after 1 0-20 ps. Suggested tim es range from. 5 ps to nearly 100 ps for medium-si/ed proteins. 

The heating phase is used to take a molecular system smoothly from lower tern peratiires, indicative of a static initial (possibly optim i/ed ) structure, to th e temperature T at which it is desired to perform the molecular dynamics simulation. The run phase then consLitn tes a sim n lation at tern peratnre T. If th e heating h as been done carefully, it may be possible to skip the equilibration phase... 

Coordin ates of atom s can he set by n orm al translation orrotation of HyperCh cm molecules, fo set initial velocities, however, it is necessary to edit th e H l. file explicitly. The tin it o f velocity in the HIN file is. An gstrom s/picosecon d.. Areact.hin file and a script react.scr are in eluded with HyperChem to illustrate one simple reacting trajectory. In order to have these initial velocities used in a trajectory the Restart check box of the Molecular Dynamics Option s dialog box must he checked. If it is n ot, the in itial velocities in the HIN file will be ignored and a re-equilibration to the tern peratiire f of th e Molecular Dyn am ics Option s dialog box will occur. This destroys any imposed initial conditions on the molecular dynamics trajectory. 

Rappe A K and W A Goddard III 1991. Charge Equilibration for Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Journal of Physical Chemistry 95 3358-3363. 

Variation in Verlet order parameter during the equilibration phase of a molecular dynamics simulation of... 

A sequence of successive configurations from a Monte Carlo simulation constitutes a trajectory in phase space with HyperChem, this trajectory may be saved and played back in the same way as a dynamics trajectory. With appropriate choices of setup parameters, the Monte Carlo method may achieve equilibration more rapidly than molecular dynamics. For some systems, then, Monte Carlo provides a more direct route to equilibrium structural and thermodynamic properties. However, these calculations can be quite long, depending upon the system studied. 

Successful molecular dynamics simulations should have a fairly stable trajectory. Instability and lack of equilibration can result from a large time step, treatment of long-range cutoffs, or unrealistic coupling to a temperature bath. 

The simplest method that keeps the temperature of a system constant during an MD simulation is to rescale the velocities at each time step by a factor of (To/T) -, where T is the current instantaneous temperature [defined in Eq. (24)] and Tq is the desired temperamre. This method is commonly used in the equilibration phase of many MD simulations and has also been suggested as a means of performing constant temperature molecular dynamics [22]. A further refinement of the velocity-rescaling approach was proposed by Berendsen et al. [24], who used velocity rescaling to couple the system to a heat bath at a temperature Tq. Since heat coupling has a characteristic relaxation time, each velocity V is scaled by a factor X, defined as... 

Rappe AK, Goddard WA (1991) Charge equilibration for molecular-dynamics simulations. J Phys Chem 95(8) 3358-3363... 

Fig. 2.12. Enthalpy, entropy, and free energy differences for the ethane —> ethane zero-sum alchemical transformation in water. The molecular dynamics simulations are similar to those described in Fig. (2.7). 120 windows (thin lines) and 32 windows (thick lines) of uneven widths were utilized to switch between the alternate topologies, with, respectively, 20 and lOOps of equilibration and 100 and 500 ps of data collection, making a total of 14.4 and 19.2 ns. The enthalpy (dashed lines) and entropy (dotted lines) difference amount to, respectively, —0.1 and +1.1 kcalmol-1, and —0.5 and +4.1 calmol-1 K For comparison purposes, the free energy difference is equal to, respectively, +0.02 and —0.07kcalmol I, significantly closer to the target value. Inset Convergence of the different thermodynamic quantities...

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