title: Structure prediction of helical transmembrane proteins at two length scales.
abstract: As the first step toward a multi-scale, hierarchical computational approach for membrane protein structure prediction, the packing of transmembrane helices was modeled at the residue and atom levels, respectively. For predictions at the residue level, the helix-helix and helix-membrane interactions were described by a set of knowledge-based energy functions. For predictions at the atom level, CHARMM19 force field was used. To facilitate the system to overcome energy barriers, the Wang-Landau method was employed, where a random walk is performed in the energy space with a uniform probability. Native-like structures were predicted at both levels for two model systems, each of which consists of two transmembrane helices. Interestingly, consistent results were obtained from simulations at the residue and atom levels for the same system, strongly suggesting the feasibility of a hierarchical approach for membrane protein structure predictions.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. zc@csbl.bmb.uga.edu
authors.forename: Zhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins