New Frontiers in Druggability.

A powerful early approach to evaluating the druggability of proteins involved determining the hit rate in NMR-based screening of a library of small compounds. Here, we show that a computational analog of this method, based on mapping proteins using small molecules as probes, can reliably reproduce druggability results from NMR-based screening and can provide a more meaningful assessment in cases where the two approaches disagree. We apply the method to a large set of proteins.

Extending classical molecular theory with polarization.

A classical, polarizable, electrostatic theory of short-ranged atom-atom interactions, incorporating the smeared nature of atomic partial charges, is presented. Detailed models are constructed for CO monomer and for CO interacting with an iron atom, as a first step toward heme proteins. A good representation is obtained of the bond-length-dependent dipole of CO monomer from fitting at the equilibrium distance only.

Structural characterization of interfacial n-octanol and 3-octanol using molecular dynamic simulations.

Structurally isomeric octanol interfacial systems, water/vapor, 3-octanol/vapor, n-octanol/vapor, 3-octanol/water, and n-octanol/water are investigated at 298 K using molecular dynamics simulation techniques. The present study is intended to investigate strongly associated liquid/liquid interfaces and probe the atomistic structure of these interfaces. The octanol and water molecules were initially placed randomly into a box and were equilibrated using constant pressure techniques to minimize bias within the initial conditions as well as to fully sample the structural conformations of the interface.