MoMA-LigPath: a web server to simulate protein-ligand unbinding.

Protein-ligand interactions taking place far away from the active site, during ligand binding or release, may determine molecular specificity and activity. However, obtaining information about these interactions with experimental or computational methods remains difficult. The computational tool presented in this article, MoMA-LigPath, is based on a mechanistic representation of the molecular system, considering partial flexibility, and on the application of a robotics-inspired algorithm to explore the conformational space.

Simulating ligand-induced conformational changes in proteins using a mechanical disassembly method.

Simulating protein conformational changes induced or required by the internal diffusion of a ligand is important for the understanding of their interaction mechanisms. Such simulations are challenging for currently available computational methods. In this paper, the problem is formulated as a mechanical disassembly problem where the protein and the ligand are modeled like articulated mechanisms, and an efficient method for computing molecular disassembly paths is described.