• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.24 no.10
• /
• pp.1470-1474
• /
• 2003

The dynamics of the tertiary conformation of myoglobin (Mb) after photolysis of carbon monoxide was investigated at 283 K solution by probing amide I and II bands using femtosecond IR absorption spectroscopy. Time-resolved spectra in the amide region evolve with 6-12 ps time scale without noticeable subpicosecond dynamics. The spectra measured at 100 ps delay after photolysis is similar to the difference FTIR spectrum at equilibrium. Time-resolved spectra of photoexcited Mb evolve modestly and their amplitudes are less than 8% of those of photolyzed MbCO, indicating that thermal contribution to the spectral evolution in the amide region is negligible. These observations suggest that the conformational relaxation ensuing photolysis of MbCO be complex and the final deoxy protein conformation have been substantially formed by 100 ps, probably with 6- 12 ps time constant.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Potoscience Conference
• /
• spring
• /
• pp.89-90
• /
• 1999

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.382-393
• /
• 2006

Mechanical system dynamics plays an important role in the area of computational structural biology. Elastic network models (ENMs) for macromolecules (e.g., polymers, proteins, and nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA) have been developed to understand the relationship between their structure and biological function. For example. a protein, which is basically a folded polypeptide chain, can be simply modeled as a mass-spring system from the mechanical viewpoint. Since the conformational flexibility of a protein is dominantly subject to its chemical bond interactions (e.g., covalent bonds, salt bridges, and hydrogen bonds), these constraints can be modeled as linear spring connections between spatially proximal representatives in a variety of coarse-grained ENMs. Coarse-graining approaches enable one to simulate harmonic and anharmonic motions of large macromolecules in a PC, while all-atom based molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has been conventionally performed with an aid of supercomputer. A harmonic analysis of a macroscopic mechanical system, called normal mode analysis, has been adopted to analyze thermal fluctuations of a microscopic biological system around its equilibrium state. Furthermore, a structure-based system optimization, called elastic network interpolation, has been developed to predict nonlinear transition (or folding) pathways between two different functional states of a same macromolecule. The good agreement of simulation and experiment allows the employment of coarse-grained ENMs as a versatile tool for the study of macromolecular dynamics.

• Macromolecular Research
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.129-142
• /
• 2001

To efficiently demonstrate the molecular motion, physical properties, and mechanical properties of polycarbonates, we studied the differences between bisphenol-A polycarbonate(BPA-PC) and tetramethyl bisphenol-A-polycarbonate(TMBPA-PC) using molecular modeling techniques. To investigate the conformations of BPA-PC and TMBPA-PC and the effect of the conformation on mechanical properties, we performed conformational energy calculation, molecular dynamics calculation, and stress-strain curves based on molecular mechanics method. From the result obtained from conformational energy calculations of each segment, the molecular motions of the carbonate and the phenylene group in BPA-PC were seen to be more vigorous and have lower restriction to mobility than those in TMBPA-PC, respectively. In addition, from the results of radial distribution function, velocity autocorrelation function, and power spectrum, BPA-PC appeared to have higher diffusion constant than TMBPA-PC and is easier to have various conformations because of the less severe restrictions in molecular motion. The result of stress-strain calculation for TMBPA-PC seemed to be in accordance with the experimental value of strain-to-failure ∼4%. From these results of conformational energy calculations of segments, molecular dynamics, and mechanical properties, it can be concluded that TMBPA-PC has higher modulus and brittleness than BPA-PC because the former has no efficient relaxation mode against the external deformations.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.623-629
• /
• 2009

We have performed replica-exchange molecular dynamics simulations on 41 residue peptide mainly composed of NAC (non A$\beta$ component) sequence in $\alpha$-Synuclein. To investigate conformational characteristics of intrinsically unstructured peptides, we carried out structural analysis on the ‘representative structures’ for ensemble of structures occurring at different temperatures. The secondary structure profile obtained from our simulations suggests that the NAC region of $\alpha$-synuclein can be divided into roughly three helical-like segments. It is found that the overall helix-turn-helix like topology is conserved even though the conformational fluctuations grow as the temperature increases. The coordinate-based and the distance-based representative structures exhibit noticeable differences at higher temperatures while they are similar at lower temperatures. It is found that structural variations for the coordinate-based representative structures are much larger, suggesting that distance-based representative structures provide more reliable information concerning characteristic features of intrinsically unstructured proteins. The present analysis also indicates that the conformational features of representative structures at high temperatures might be related to those in membrane or low pH environment.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.19 no.10
• /
• pp.1068-1072
• /
• 1998

We present results of molecular dynamic (MD) simulations for the segmental motion of liquid n-butane as the base case for a consistent study for conformational transition from one rotational isomeric state to another in long chains of liquid n-alkanes. The behavior of the hazard plots for n-butane obtained from our MD simulations are compared with that for n-butane of Brownian dynamics study. The MD results for the conformational transition of n-butane by a Poisson process form the total first passage times are different from those from the separate t-g and g-t first passage times. This poor agreement is probably due to the failure of the detailed balance between the fractions of trans and gauche. The enhancement of the transitions t-g and g-t at short time regions are also discussed.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.463-466
• /
• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Potoscience Conference
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.97-97
• /
• 2005

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.212-212
• /
• 2022

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.17 no.7
• /
• pp.1098-1105
• /
• 2007

Quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics simulation analysis has been performed on the model system for CALB (Candida antarctica lipase B) with esters to study the reaction mechanism and conformational preference of catalytic hydrolysis and the esterification reaction. Using quantum mechanical analysis, the ping-pong bi-bi mechanism was applied and energies and 3-dimensional binding configurations of the whole reaction pathways were calculated. Further molecular dynamics simulation analysis was performed on the basis of the transition state obtained from quantum mechanical study to observe the effect of structures of the substrates. Calculation results using substrates of different chain length and chiral configurations were compared for conformational preference. The calculated results showed very small influence on chain length, whereas chiral conformation showed big differences. Calculated results from molecular modeling studies have been compared qualitatively with the experimental data using racemic mixtures of (${\pm}$)-cis-4-acetamido-cyclopent-2-ene-1-ethyl acetate as substrates.