title: Membrane protein structure quality in molecular dynamics simulation.
abstract: Our goal was to assess the relationship between membrane protein quality, output from protein quality checkers and output from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Membrane transport proteins are essential for a wide range of cellular processes. Structural features of integral membrane proteins are still under-explored due to experimental limitations in structure determination. Computational techniques can be used to exploit biochemical and medium resolution structural data, as well as sequence homology to known structures, and enable us to explore the structure-function relationships in several transmembrane proteins. The quality of the models produced is vitally important to obtain reliable predictions. An examination of the relationship between model stability in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations derived from RMSD (root mean squared deviation) and structure quality assessment from various protein quality checkers was undertaken. The results were compared to membrane protein structures, solved at various resolution, by either X-ray or electron diffraction techniques. The checking programs could predict the potential success of MD in making functional conclusions. MD stability was shown to be a good indicator for the quality of structures. The quality was also shown to be dependent on the resolution at which the structures were determined.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry, The University of Oxford, The Rex Richards Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QU, UK. rlaw@mccammon.ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Law
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Capener
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baaden
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Bond
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Patargias
authors.forename: Yalini
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Arinaminpathy
authors.forename: Mark S P
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Sansom
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray / Q000592:standards; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000592:standards; D008958:Models, Molecular; D012984:Software / Q000592:standards; D040681:Structural Homology, Protein; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction / Q000592:standards
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins