Structures generation

Many of the conversion programs apply a knowledge base to construct the 3D structure. For example, the CONCORD program combines rules with 

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Metzler W J, Hare D R and Pardi A 1989 Limited sampling of conformational space by the distance geometry algorithm implications for structures generated from NMR data Bioohemistry 2S 7045-52... 

The DENDRAL project initiated in 1964 at Stanford was the prototypical application of artificial intelligence techniques - or what was understood at that time under this name - to chemical problems. Chemical structure generators were developed and information from mass spectra was used to prune the chemical graphs in order to derive the chemical structure associated with a certain mass spectrum. 

Chemists have been used to drawing chemical structures for more than a hundred years. Nowadays, structures are not only drawn on papei but they are also available in electronic form on a computer for publications, for presentations, or for the input and outptit with computer programs. For these applications, well-known software such as ISIS/Draw (MDL [31] or ChemWindow (Bio-Rad Sadtier [32]) arc used (see Section 2,12), The structures generated with these programs arc... 

In principle, two different classes of structure generators can be distinguished, namely empirical approaches,. such as fragment-based or rule- and data-based... 

This section describes briefly some of the basic concepts and methods of automatic 3D model builders. However, interested readers are referred to Chapter II, Section 7.1 in the Handbook, where a more detailed description of the approaches to automatic 3D structure generation and the developed program systems is given. 

A widely used 3D structure generator is CONCORD [131, 132] (for a more detailed description see Chapter II, Section 7.1 in the Handbook). CONCORD is also a rule- and data-based program system and uses a simplified force field for geometry optimization, CONCORD converts structures from 2D to 3D fairly fast... 

Figure 2-106. Ring teinplates foc a saturated siy-inernbei ed cing and a six-ineinbeced ring with one double bond as implemented in the ring conformation table of the 3D structure generator CORINA.

D information is available, e.g., in databases without experimental data, the different types of surfaces (sec below) can be calculated only after a 3D structure has been determined by a 3D structure generator, which might be followed by computational refinement, e.g., with a force-field calculation. 

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. 

Figure 2-137. Screenshot of the 3D structure viewer and download options for the 3D structure generated on the CORINA web interface.

Two of the widely used programs for the generation of 3D structures are CONCORD and CORINA. CONCORD was developed by Pearlman and co-workers (17, 18] and is distributed by TRIPOS (19). The 3D-structure generator CORINA originates from Gasteiger s research group [20-23] and is available from Molecular Networks [24],... 

The compounds were described by a set of 32 radial distribution function (RDF) code values [27] representing the 3D structure of a molecule and eight additional descriptors. The 3D coordinates were obtained using the 3D structure generator GORINA [33]. 

A descriptor for the 3D arrangement of atoms in a molceulc can be derived in a similar manner. The Cartesian coordinates of the atoms in a molecule can be calculated by semi-empirical quantum mechanical or molecular mechanics (force field) methods, For larger data sets, fast 3D structure generators are available that combine data- and rule-driven methods to calculate Cartesian coordinates from the connection table of a molecule (e.g., CORINA [10]). 

Furthermore, the prediction of and NMR spectra is of great importance in systems for automatic structure elucidation. In many such systems, aU isomers with a given molecular formula are automatically produced by a structure generator, and are then ranked according to the similarity of the spectrum predicted for each isomer to the experimental spectrum. 

This coding is performed in three steps (cf Chapter 8) First the 3D coordinates of the atoms arc calculated using the structure generator CORINA (COoRdlNAtes). Subsequently the program PETRA (Parameter Estimation for the Treatment of Reactivity Applications) is applied for calculating physicochemical properties such as charge distribution and polarizability. The 3D information and the physicochemical atomic properties are then used to code the molecule. 

Figure 10.M7. 3D structures of the reactants and products of Figure 10.3-16b as obtained by the 3D structure generator CORINA.

The structure database has been enriched with the 3D structures of all compounds as generated by the 3D structure generator CORINA (sec Section 2.9,... 

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