From coarse-grain to all-atom: Toward multiscale analysis of protein landscapes

A. P. Heath, L. E. Kavraki, and C. Clementi, “From coarse-grain to all-atom: Toward multiscale analysis of protein landscapes,” Proteins: Structure, Function and Bioinformatics, vol. 68, no. 3, pp. 646–661, Aug. 2007.

Abstract

Multiscale methods are becoming increasingly promising as a way to characterize the dynamics of large protein systems on biologically relevant time-scales. The underlying assumption in multiscale simulations is that it is possible to move reliably between different resolutions. We present a method that efficiently generates realistic all-atom protein structures starting from the C(alpha) atom positions, as obtained for instance from extensive coarse-grain simulations. The method, a reconstruction algorithm for coarse-grain structures (RACOGS), is validated by reconstructing ensembles of coarse-grain structures obtained during folding simulations of the proteins src-SH3 and S6. The results show that RACOGS consistently produces low energy, all-atom structures. A comparison of the free energy landscapes calculated using the coarse-grain structures versus the all-atom structures shows good correspondence and little distortion in the protein folding landscape.

Publisher: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/prot.21371

PDF preprint: http://kavrakilab.org/publications/heath-kavraki2007from-coarse-grain-to.pdf