title: Use of TSAR as a new tool to analyze the molecular dynamics trajectories of proteins.
abstract: There is a lack of tools to analyze simulations of protein molecular dynamics quantitatively. Our aim is to use calmodulin, a prototypical calcium-binding protein, to describe a strategy and some tools for extracting relevant information from dynamics calculations. Our main conclusions are as follows: Autocorrelation vectors may be used to represent a 3D conformation in an n-dimensional space, where n is variable (n < or = 20-30). On such a transformation, classic statistical tools (PCA, clustering, etc.) may be used to differentiate or characterize dynamics trajectories quantitatively. TSAR, an integrated package used for quantitative structure-activity relationships, is well suited (after minor modifications) for such a purpose. Finally, this type of strategy is able to point out the effects of the solvent screening parameters of the Amber software on the dynamics trajectories of calmodulin.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Chimie Bactérienne, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haiech
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Koscielniak
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grassy
mesh_terms: D002147:Calmodulin / Q000737:chemistry; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003196:Computer Graphics; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008958:Models, Molecular; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D012984:Software; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D002147:Calmodulin; D011506:Proteins