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Full-Text Articles in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology
A Physics-Based Intermolecular Potential For Biomolecular Simulation, Joshua Andrew Rackers
A Physics-Based Intermolecular Potential For Biomolecular Simulation, Joshua Andrew Rackers
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The grand challenge of biophysics is to use the fundamental laws of physics to predict how biological molecules will move and interact. The atomistic HIPPO (Hydrogen-like Intermolecular Polarizable Potential) force field is meant to address this challenge. It does so by breaking down the intermolecular potential energy function of biomolecular interactions into physically meaningful components (electrostatics, polarization, dispersion, and exchangerepulsion) and using this function to drive molecular dynamics simulations. This force field is able to achieve accuracy within 1 kcal/mol for each component when compared with ab initio Symmetry Adapted Perturbation Theory calculations. HIPPO is capable of this accuracy because …
Fast-Forward Protein Folding And Design: Development, Analysis, And Applications Of The Fast Sampling Algorithm, Maxwell Isaac Zimmerman
Fast-Forward Protein Folding And Design: Development, Analysis, And Applications Of The Fast Sampling Algorithm, Maxwell Isaac Zimmerman
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Molecular dynamics simulations are a powerful tool to explore conformational landscapes, though limitations in computational hardware commonly thwart observation of biologically relevant events. Since highly specialized or massively parallelized distributed supercomputers are not available to most scientists, there is a strong need for methods that can access long timescale phenomena using commodity hardware. In this thesis, I present the goal-oriented sampling method, Fluctuation Amplification of Specific Traits (FAST), that takes advantage of Markov state models (MSMs) to adaptively explore conformational space using equilibrium-based simulations. This method follows gradients in conformational space to quickly explore relevant conformational transitions with orders of …
Kcnq1/Kcne1 Interaction In The Cardiac Iks Channel And Its Physiological Consequences, Jiajing Xu
Kcnq1/Kcne1 Interaction In The Cardiac Iks Channel And Its Physiological Consequences, Jiajing Xu
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Dynamic conformational changes of ion channel proteins during activation gating determine their function as carriers of current. The relationship between these molecular movements and channel function over the physiological timescale of the action potential (AP) has not been fully established due to limitations of existing techniques. We constructed a library of possible cardiac IKs protein conformations and applied a combination of protein segmentation and energy linearization to study this relationship computationally. Simulations reproduced the effects of the beta-subunit (KCNE1) on the alpha-subunit (KCNQ1) dynamics and function, observed in experiments. Mechanistically, KCNE1 increased the probability of “visiting” conducting pore conformations on …