Single topology

Figure 3 Mutation of a ligand Asp into Asn in solution and bound to a protein, (a) Thermodynamic cycle, (b) Dual topology description a hybrid ligand with two side chains. Blocks are used to define the hybrid energy function [Eq. (14)]. Only the ligand is shown the environment is either solvent or the solvated protein, (c) Single-topology description.

Finally, an alchemical free energy simulation is needed to obtain the free energy difference between any one substate of system A and any one substate of system B, e.g., Ai- In practice, one chooses two substates that resemble each other as much as possible. In the alchemical simulation, it is necessary to restrain appropriate parts of the system to remain in the chosen substate. Thus, for the present hybrid Asp/Asn molecule, the Asp side chain should be confined to the Asp substate I and the Asn side chain confined to its substate I. Flat-bottomed dihedral restraints can achieve this very conveniently [38], in such a way that the most populated configurations (near the energy minimum) are hardly perturbed by the restraints. Note that if the substates AI and BI differ substantially, the transfomnation will be difficult to perform with a single-topology approach. 

In sharp contrast with the single-topology paradigm, the topologies of the reference, 0, and the target, 1, states coexist in the dual-topology scheme throughout the... 

From (2.70), it follows that the free energy cannot be divided simply into two terms, associated with the interactions of type a and type b. There are also coupling terms, which would vanish only if fluctuations in AUa and AUb were uncorrelated. One might expect that such a decoupling could be accomplished by carrying out the transformations that involve interactions of type a and type 6 separately. In Sect. 2,8.4, we have already discussed such a case for electrostatic and van der Waals interactions in the context of single-topology alchemical transformations. Even then, however, correlations between these two types of interactions are not... 

Figure 3. Single topology definition for compound JG365 and JG365A. The chemical symbols with the D prefix indicate dummy atoms and X=Ac-Ser-Leu-Asn-(Phe-Hea-Pro)...

---