Multiscale Ensemble Computing for Modelling Biological Catalysts
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Chemistry
Abstract
The goal of this project is to use the flexible HPC resource made available on HPCx to perform a detailed investigation of the mechanism of chemical reactions catalysed by the enzyme fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), an important target for drug development. HPC resources are increasingly helping to illuminate and analyse the fundamental mechanisms of biological 'molecular machines'. An example is enzyme catalysis. Enzymes are very efficient natural catalysts. Understanding how they work is a vital first step to the goal of harnessing their power for industrial and pharmaceutical applications. For example, many drugs work by stopping enzymes from functioning.Atomically detailed computer models of enzyme-catalysed reactions provide an insight into the source of an enzyme's power. Due to the large size of biological molecules, simplified classical models of atomic interactions are used. These molecular mechanics (MM) models have been used successfully to understand the molecular dynamics of proteins. However, MM can provide only a low-quality model of a chemical reaction, as electrons are represented implicitly. The best quality chemical models are provided by quantum mechanics (QM). QM calculations are highly computationally expensive, so it would be challenging to solve a QM model of an entire enzyme system. One solution is to use multiscale methods that embed a QM representation of the reactive region of the enzyme within an MM model of the rest of the system. Multilevel simulations of biological systems scale poorly over the many processors available on an HPC resource. New multiscale modelling methods(4) that split a single calculation into an ensemble of loosely-coupled simulations, are therefore a promising new direction to utilize maximum computingpower. The aim is to make best use of the large numbers of processors by effectively coupling multiple individual simulations into a single supra-simulation. This method, applied on an HPC resource, promises to lead to a step change in the quality of the modelling of enzyme-catalysed reactions, and will provide new insights into these remarkable biological molecules.
Organisations
Publications
Mulholland A
(1998)
Calculations on the substrates of citrate synthase I. Oxaloacetate
in Journal of Molecular Structure: THEOCHEM
Ridder L
(1999)
Combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical reaction pathway calculation for aromatic hydroxylation by p-hydroxybenzoate-3-hydroxylase.
in Journal of molecular graphics & modelling
Elcock A
(2002)
Combined Quantum and Molecular Mechanical Study of DNA Crosslinking by Nitrous Acid
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Zurek J
(2004)
MM and QM/MM Modeling of Threonyl-tRNA Synthetase: Model Testing and Simulations
in Structural Chemistry
Harvey J
(2006)
QM and QM/MM studies of selectivity in organic and bioorganic chemistry
in Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry
Szefczyk B
(2007)
Quantum chemical analysis of reaction paths in chorismate mutase: Conformational effects and electrostatic stabilization
in International Journal of Quantum Chemistry
Lodola A
(2009)
Insights into the mechanism and inhibition of fatty acid amide hydrolase from quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) modelling.
in Biochemical Society transactions
Hermann JC
(2009)
High level QM/MM modeling of the formation of the tetrahedral intermediate in the acylation of wild type and K73A mutant TEM-1 class A beta-lactamase.
in The journal of physical chemistry. A
Mujika JI
(2009)
Modeling protein splicing: reaction pathway for C-terminal splice and intein scission.
in The journal of physical chemistry. B
Mulholland, AJ
(2009)
Using high-performance computing to model enzyme-catalysed reactions
Van Der Kamp M
(2009)
ChemInform Abstract: Computational Enzymology: Insight into Biological Catalyst from Modelling
in ChemInform
Shaw K
(2009)
Compatibility of Quantum Chemical Methods and Empirical (MM) Water Models in Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics Liquid Water Simulations
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Grant Ian M.
(2009)
Conformation and Catalysis in Lysozyme. A computational study
Lonsdale Richard
(2009)
Cytochrome P450 reactivity and specificity from QM/MM modelling
Woods CJ
(2009)
Multicore Parallelization of Kohn-Sham Theory.
in Journal of chemical theory and computation
Szeto M
(2009)
QM/MM study on the mechanism of peptide hydrolysis by carboxypeptidase A
in Journal of Molecular Structure: THEOCHEM
Pentikäinen U
(2009)
Lennard-Jones Parameters for B3LYP/CHARMM27 QM/MM Modeling of Nucleic Acid Bases
in Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
Mulholland Adrian J.
(2009)
PHYS 47-Biomolecular simulations of enzymatic reactions
in ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
RANAGHAN K
(2009)
Insights into enzyme catalysis from QM/MM modelling: transition state stabilization in chorismate mutase
in Molecular Physics
Rowlands Heather Ann
(2009)
Modelling of the sugar processing enzymes chitinase B and Phosphomannomutase/ Phosphoglucomutase
Karabencheva-Christova Tatyana Georgieva
(2009)
QM/MM modelling of mechanisms of flavin-containing enzymes
Ranaghan K
(2010)
Investigations of enzyme-catalysed reactions with combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) methods
in International Reviews in Physical Chemistry
Lodola A
(2010)
Structural Fluctuations in Enzyme-Catalyzed Reactions: Determinants of Reactivity in Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase from Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics Paths.
in Journal of chemical theory and computation
Lawan Narin
(2010)
QM/MM modelling of the reaction mechanism of chorismate synthase and mutase
Ren Q
(2010)
Optimal control design of laser pulses for mode specific vibrational excitation in an enzyme-substrate complex
in Chemical Physics Letters
Description | BBSRC Tools and Techniques: Computational tools for enzyme engineering: bridging the gap between enzymologists and expert simulation |
Amount | £146,027 (GBP) |
Funding ID | BB/L018756/1 |
Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 07/2014 |
End | 01/2016 |
Description | Biocatalysis and Biotransformation: A 5th Theme for the National Catalysis Hub |
Amount | £3,053,639 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/M013219/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2015 |
End | 12/2019 |
Title | Sire 2009.1 |
Description | 2009.1 release of the Sire molecular simulation framework. Main enhancement was making the code portable to a wide range of architectures, e.g. including PowerPC/AIX (so that the code could run efficiently on HPCx) and enhancing the functionality of the QM/MM free energy code. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2009 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | Sire is used in several pharmaceutical companies for applications in drug design and development. This version of the code was used to run the simulations in "Compatibility of Quantum Chemical Methods and Empirical (MM) Water Models in Quantum Mechanics / Molecular Mechanics Liquid Water Simulations", J. Phys. Chem. Lett., doi:10.1021/jz900096p and "Combined Quantum Mechanics Molecular Mechanics (QM MM) Simulations for Protein Ligand Complexes: Free Energies of Binding of Water Molecules in Influenza Neuraminidase", J. Phys. Chem. B, 2014, Accepted 10.1021/jp506413j |
URL | http://www.siremol.org/Sire/Home.html |