Conformational Dynamics Simulations of Proteins

Markus Eichinger - Berthold Heymann - Helmut Heller - Helmut Grubmüller - Paul Tavan

Institut für Medizinische Optik, Theoretische Biophysik,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München,
Oettingenstraße 67, D-80538 München, Germany

Abstract:

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of proteins provide descriptions of atomic motions, which allow to relate observable properties of proteins to microscopic processes. Unfortunately, such MD simulations require an enormous amount of computer time and, therefore, are limited to time scales of nanoseconds. We describe first a fast multiple time step structure adapted multipole method (FAMUSAMM) to speed up the evaluation of the computationally most demanding Coulomb interactions in solvated protein models, secondly an application of this method aiming at a microscopic understanding of single molecule atomic force microscopy experiments, and, thirdly, a new method to predict slow conformational motions at microsecond time scales.