title: FastContact: rapid estimate of contact and binding free energies.
abstract: Interaction free energies are crucial for analyzing binding propensities in proteins. Although the problem of computing binding free energies remains open, approximate estimates have become very useful for filtering potential binding complexes. We report on the implementation of a fast computational estimate of the binding free energy based on a statistically determined desolvation contact potential and Coulomb electrostatics with a distance-dependent dielectric constant, and validated in the Critical Assessment of PRotein Interactions experiment. The application also reports residue contact free energies that rapidly highlight the hotspots of the interaction.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  The program was written in Fortran. The executable and full documentation is freely available at http://structure.pitt.edu/software/FastContact
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. ccamacho@pitt.edu
authors.forename: Carlos J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Camacho
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry*; D001665:Binding Sites; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D011506:Proteins / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D011506:Proteins