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Nobili G, Botticelli S, La Penna G, Morante S, Rossi G, Salina G. Probing protein stability: towards a computational atomistic, reliable, affordable, and improvable model. Front Mol Biosci 2023; 10:1122269. [PMID: 37325476 PMCID: PMC10267363 DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1122269] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2022] [Accepted: 05/16/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023] Open
Abstract
We present an improved application of a recently proposed computational method designed to evaluate the change of free energy as a function of the average value of a suitably chosen collective variable in proteins. The method is based on a full atomistic description of the protein and its environment. The goal is to understand how the protein melting temperature changes upon single-point mutations, because the sign of the temperature variation will allow us to discriminate stabilizing vs. destabilizing mutations in protein sequences. In this refined application the method is based on altruistic well-tempered metadynamics, a variant of multiple-walkers metadynamics. The resulting metastatistics is then modulated by the maximal constrained entropy principle. The latter turns out to be especially helpful in free-energy calculations as it is able to alleviate the severe limitations of metadynamics in properly sampling folded and unfolded configurations. In this work we apply the computational strategy outlined above in the case of the bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor, a well-studied small protein, which is a reference for computer simulations since decades. We compute the variation of the melting temperature characterizing the folding-unfolding process between the wild-type protein and two of its single-point mutations that are seen to have opposite effect on the free energy changes. The same approach is used for free energy difference calculations between a truncated form of frataxin and a set of five of its variants. Simulation data are compared to in vitro experiments. In all cases the sign of the change of melting temperature is reproduced, under the further approximation of using an empirical effective mean-field to average out protein-solvent interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Germano Nobili
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
- INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
| | - Simone Botticelli
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
- INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
| | - Giovanni La Penna
- CNR-Istituto di Chimica Dei Composti Organometallici, Firenze, Italy
- INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
| | - Silvia Morante
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
- INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
- CNR-Istituto di Chimica Dei Composti Organometallici, Firenze, Italy
| | - Giancarlo Rossi
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
- INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
- Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche E. Fermi, Roma, Italy
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Botticelli S, La Penna G, Nobili G, Rossi G, Stellato F, Morante S. Modelling Protein Plasticity: The Example of Frataxin and Its Variants. Molecules 2022; 27:1955. [PMID: 35335316 PMCID: PMC8950120 DOI: 10.3390/molecules27061955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 03/07/2022] [Accepted: 03/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Frataxin (FXN) is a protein involved in storage and delivery of iron in the mitochondria. Single-point mutations in the FXN gene lead to reduced production of functional frataxin, with the consequent dyshomeostasis of iron. FXN variants are at the basis of neurological impairment (the Friedreich's ataxia) and several types of cancer. By using altruistic metadynamics in conjunction with the maximal constrained entropy principle, we estimate the change of free energy in the protein unfolding of frataxin and of some of its pathological mutants. The sampled configurations highlight differences between the wild-type and mutated sequences in the stability of the folded state. In partial agreement with thermodynamic experiments, where most of the analyzed variants are characterized by lower thermal stability compared to wild type, the D104G variant is found with a stability comparable to the wild-type sequence and a lower water-accessible surface area. These observations, obtained with the new approach we propose in our work, point to a functional switch, affected by single-point mutations, of frataxin from iron storage to iron release. The method is suitable to investigate wide structural changes in proteins in general, after a proper tuning of the chosen collective variable used to perform the transition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simone Botticelli
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, INFN, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I-00133 Roma, Italy; (S.B.); (G.N.); (G.R.); (F.S.); (S.M.)
| | - Giovanni La Penna
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, INFN, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I-00133 Roma, Italy; (S.B.); (G.N.); (G.R.); (F.S.); (S.M.)
- Istituto di Chimica dei Composti Organometallici, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Madonna del Piano 10, I-50019 Firenze, Italy
| | - Germano Nobili
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, INFN, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I-00133 Roma, Italy; (S.B.); (G.N.); (G.R.); (F.S.); (S.M.)
| | - Giancarlo Rossi
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, INFN, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I-00133 Roma, Italy; (S.B.); (G.N.); (G.R.); (F.S.); (S.M.)
- Centro Fermi—Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche E. Fermi, I-00184 Roma, Italy
| | - Francesco Stellato
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, INFN, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I-00133 Roma, Italy; (S.B.); (G.N.); (G.R.); (F.S.); (S.M.)
- Centro Fermi—Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche E. Fermi, I-00184 Roma, Italy
| | - Silvia Morante
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, INFN, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I-00133 Roma, Italy; (S.B.); (G.N.); (G.R.); (F.S.); (S.M.)
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Banchelli M, Cascella R, D’Andrea C, La Penna G, Li MS, Machetti F, Matteini P, Pizzanelli S. Probing the Structure of Toxic Amyloid-β Oligomers with Electron Spin Resonance and Molecular Modeling. ACS Chem Neurosci 2021; 12:1150-1161. [PMID: 33724783 PMCID: PMC9284516 DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00714] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Structural models of the toxic species involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease are of utmost importance to understand the molecular mechanism and to describe early biomarkers of the disease. Among toxic species, soluble oligomers of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides are particularly important, because they are responsible for spreading cell damages over brain regions, thus rapidly impairing brain functions. In this work we obtain structural information on a carefully prepared Aβ(1-42) sample, representing a toxic state for cell cultures, by combining electron spin resonance spectroscopy and computational models. We exploited the binding of Cu2+ to Aβ(1-42) and used copper as a probe for estimating Cu-Cu distances in the oligomers by applying double electron-electron resonance (DEER) pulse sequence. The DEER trace of this sample displays a unique feature that fits well with structural models of oligomers formed by Cu-cross-linked peptide dimers. Because Cu is bound to the Aβ(1-42) N-terminus, for the first time structural constraints that are missing in reported studies are provided at physiological conditions for the Aβ N-termini. These constraints suggest the Aβ(1-42) dimer as the building block of soluble oligomers, thus changing the scenario for any kinetic model of Aβ(1-42) aggregation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martina Banchelli
- National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara”, Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019 FI, Italy
| | - Roberta Cascella
- University of Florence, Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences, I-50134 Firenze, Italy
| | - Cristiano D’Andrea
- National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara”, Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019 FI, Italy
| | - Giovanni La Penna
- National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds (ICCOM), Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019 FI, Italy
- National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN),
Section of Roma-Tor Vergata, I-00133 Roma, Italy
| | - Mai Suan Li
- Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al. Lotnikow 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland
- Institute for Computational Science and Technology, 6 Quarter, Linh Trung Ward, Thu
Duc District, 700000 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
| | - Fabrizio Machetti
- National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds (ICCOM), Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019 FI, Italy
- University of Florence, Department of Chemistry “Ugo Schiff”, Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019 FI, Italy
| | - Paolo Matteini
- National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara”, Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019 FI, Italy
| | - Silvia Pizzanelli
- National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds (ICCOM), I-56124 Pisa, Italy
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Abstract
This chapter discusses how the PLUMED plugin for molecular dynamics can be used to analyze and bias molecular dynamics trajectories. The chapter begins by introducing the notion of a collective variable and by then explaining how the free energy can be computed as a function of one or more collective variables. A number of practical issues mostly around periodic boundary conditions that arise when these types of calculations are performed using PLUMED are then discussed. Later parts of the chapter discuss how PLUMED can be used to perform enhanced sampling simulations that introduce simulation biases or multiple replicas of the system and Monte Carlo exchanges between these replicas. This section is then followed by a discussion on how free-energy surfaces and associated error bars can be extracted from such simulations by using weighted histogram and block averaging techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Bussi
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy.
| | - Gareth A Tribello
- Atomistic Simulation Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK.
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La Penna G, Li MS. Computational models explain how copper binding to amyloid-β peptide oligomers enhances oxidative pathways. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2019; 21:8774-8784. [DOI: 10.1039/c9cp00293f] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides are intrinsically disordered peptides and their aggregation is the major hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni La Penna
- National Research Council of Italy (CNR)
- Institute for Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds (ICCOM)
- via Madonna del Piano 10
- 50019 Sesto Fiorentino
- Firenze
| | - Mai Suan Li
- Institute of Physics
- Polish Academy of Sciences
- Al. Lotnikow 32/46
- 02-668 Warsaw
- Poland
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Prakash A, Fu CD, Bonomi M, Pfaendtner J. Biasing Smarter, Not Harder, by Partitioning Collective Variables into Families in Parallel Bias Metadynamics. J Chem Theory Comput 2018; 14:4985-4990. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.8b00448] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Arushi Prakash
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States
| | - Christopher D. Fu
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States
| | - Massimiliano Bonomi
- Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Jim Pfaendtner
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States
- Senior Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, United States
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Šponer J, Bussi G, Krepl M, Banáš P, Bottaro S, Cunha RA, Gil-Ley A, Pinamonti G, Poblete S, Jurečka P, Walter NG, Otyepka M. RNA Structural Dynamics As Captured by Molecular Simulations: A Comprehensive Overview. Chem Rev 2018; 118:4177-4338. [PMID: 29297679 PMCID: PMC5920944 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.7b00427] [Citation(s) in RCA: 336] [Impact Index Per Article: 56.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2017] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
With both catalytic and genetic functions, ribonucleic acid (RNA) is perhaps the most pluripotent chemical species in molecular biology, and its functions are intimately linked to its structure and dynamics. Computer simulations, and in particular atomistic molecular dynamics (MD), allow structural dynamics of biomolecular systems to be investigated with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution. We here provide a comprehensive overview of the fast-developing field of MD simulations of RNA molecules. We begin with an in-depth, evaluatory coverage of the most fundamental methodological challenges that set the basis for the future development of the field, in particular, the current developments and inherent physical limitations of the atomistic force fields and the recent advances in a broad spectrum of enhanced sampling methods. We also survey the closely related field of coarse-grained modeling of RNA systems. After dealing with the methodological aspects, we provide an exhaustive overview of the available RNA simulation literature, ranging from studies of the smallest RNA oligonucleotides to investigations of the entire ribosome. Our review encompasses tetranucleotides, tetraloops, a number of small RNA motifs, A-helix RNA, kissing-loop complexes, the TAR RNA element, the decoding center and other important regions of the ribosome, as well as assorted others systems. Extended sections are devoted to RNA-ion interactions, ribozymes, riboswitches, and protein/RNA complexes. Our overview is written for as broad of an audience as possible, aiming to provide a much-needed interdisciplinary bridge between computation and experiment, together with a perspective on the future of the field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiří Šponer
- Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences , Kralovopolska 135 , Brno 612 65 , Czech Republic
| | - Giovanni Bussi
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati , Via Bonomea 265 , Trieste 34136 , Italy
| | - Miroslav Krepl
- Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences , Kralovopolska 135 , Brno 612 65 , Czech Republic
- Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Science , Palacky University Olomouc , 17. listopadu 12 , Olomouc 771 46 , Czech Republic
| | - Pavel Banáš
- Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Science , Palacky University Olomouc , 17. listopadu 12 , Olomouc 771 46 , Czech Republic
| | - Sandro Bottaro
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory, Department of Biology , University of Copenhagen , Copenhagen 2200 , Denmark
| | - Richard A Cunha
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati , Via Bonomea 265 , Trieste 34136 , Italy
| | - Alejandro Gil-Ley
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati , Via Bonomea 265 , Trieste 34136 , Italy
| | - Giovanni Pinamonti
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati , Via Bonomea 265 , Trieste 34136 , Italy
| | - Simón Poblete
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati , Via Bonomea 265 , Trieste 34136 , Italy
| | - Petr Jurečka
- Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Science , Palacky University Olomouc , 17. listopadu 12 , Olomouc 771 46 , Czech Republic
| | - Nils G Walter
- Single Molecule Analysis Group and Center for RNA Biomedicine, Department of Chemistry , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , Michigan 48109 , United States
| | - Michal Otyepka
- Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Science , Palacky University Olomouc , 17. listopadu 12 , Olomouc 771 46 , Czech Republic
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La Penna G, Li MS. Towards High-Throughput Modelling of Copper Reactivity Induced by Structural Disorder in Amyloid Peptides. Chemistry 2018; 24:5259-5270. [DOI: 10.1002/chem.201704654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2017] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni La Penna
- National Research Council (CNR); Institute for Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds (ICCOM); via Madonna del Piano 10 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze Italy
| | - Mai Suan Li
- Polish Academy of Sciences; Institute of Physics; al. Lotników 32/46 02-668 Warsaw Poland
- Institute for Computational Science and Technology, SBI Building, Quang Trung Software City, Tan Chanh Hiep Ward, District 12; Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam
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Kříž P, Šućur Z, Spiwok V. Free-Energy Surface Prediction by Flying Gaussian Method: Multisystem Representation. J Phys Chem B 2017; 121:10479-10483. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.7b09337] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Pavel Kříž
- Department of Mathematics, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Technická 5, 166 28 Praha 6, Czech Republic
| | - Zoran Šućur
- Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Technická 5, 166 28 Praha 6, Czech Republic
| | - Vojtěch Spiwok
- Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Technická 5, 166 28 Praha 6, Czech Republic
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Lee TS, Hu Y, Sherborne B, Guo Z, York DM. Toward Fast and Accurate Binding Affinity Prediction with pmemdGTI: An Efficient Implementation of GPU-Accelerated Thermodynamic Integration. J Chem Theory Comput 2017; 13:3077-3084. [PMID: 28618232 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.7b00102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 82] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
We report the implementation of the thermodynamic integration method on the pmemd module of the AMBER 16 package on GPUs (pmemdGTI). The pmemdGTI code typically delivers over 2 orders of magnitude of speed-up relative to a single CPU core for the calculation of ligand-protein binding affinities with no statistically significant numerical differences and thus provides a powerful new tool for drug discovery applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tai-Sung Lee
- Laboratory for Biomolecular Simulation Research, Center for Integrative Proteomics Research and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University , Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
| | - Yuan Hu
- Department of Chemistry, Modeling and Informatics, Merck Research Laboratories, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, New Jersey 07033, United States
| | - Brad Sherborne
- Department of Chemistry, Modeling and Informatics, Merck Research Laboratories, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, New Jersey 07033, United States
| | - Zhuyan Guo
- Department of Chemistry, Modeling and Informatics, Merck Research Laboratories, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, New Jersey 07033, United States
| | - Darrin M York
- Laboratory for Biomolecular Simulation Research, Center for Integrative Proteomics Research and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University , Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
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Hošek P, Kříž P, Toulcová D, Spiwok V. Multisystem altruistic metadynamics-Well-tempered variant. J Chem Phys 2017; 146:125103. [PMID: 28388169 DOI: 10.1063/1.4978939] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Metadynamics method has been widely used to enhance sampling in molecular simulations. Its original form suffers two major drawbacks, poor convergence in complex (especially biomolecular) systems and its serial nature. The first drawback has been addressed by introduction of a convergent variant known as well-tempered metadynamics. The second was addressed by introduction of a parallel multisystem metadynamics referred to as altruistic metadynamics. Here, we combine both approaches into well-tempered altruistic metadynamics. We provide mathematical arguments and trial simulations to show that it accurately predicts free energy surfaces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Petr Hošek
- Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Technická 5, Prague 6 166 28, Czech Republic
| | - Pavel Kříž
- Department of Mathematics, University of Chemistry and Technology, Technická 5, Prague 6 166 28, Czech Republic
| | - Daniela Toulcová
- Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Technická 5, Prague 6 166 28, Czech Republic
| | - Vojtěch Spiwok
- Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Technická 5, Prague 6 166 28, Czech Republic
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12
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Šućur Z, Spiwok V. Sampling Enhancement and Free Energy Prediction by the Flying Gaussian Method. J Chem Theory Comput 2016; 12:4644-50. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.6b00551] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Zoran Šućur
- Department of Biochemistry
and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Technická 3, Prague 6, 166 28, Czech Republic
| | - Vojtěch Spiwok
- Department of Biochemistry
and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Technická 3, Prague 6, 166 28, Czech Republic
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