Skip to main content

Molecular Dynamics Flexible Fitting: All You Want to Know About Resolution Exchange

  • Protocol
  • First Online:
Protein Structure Prediction

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2165))

Abstract

In recent years, owing to the advances in instrumentation, cryo-EM has emerged as the go-to tool for obtaining high-resolution structures of biomolecular systems. However, building three-dimensional atomic structures of biomolecules from these high-resolution maps remains a concern for the traditional map-guided structure-determination schemes. Recently, we developed a computational tool, Resolution Exchange Molecular Dynamics Flexible Fitting (ReMDFF) to address this problem by re-refining a search model against a series of maps of progressively higher resolutions, which ends with the original experimental resolution (Wang et al., J Struct Biol 204(2):319–328, 2018). In this chapter, we present a step-by-step outline for preparing, executing, and analyzing ReMDFF refinements of simple proteins and multimeric complexes. The structure determination of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase and Mg2+-channel CorA are employed as case studies. All scripts are provided via GitHub (Vant, Resolution exchange molecular dynamics flexible fitting (ReMDFF) all you want to know about flexible fitting, 2019, https://github.com/jvant/ReMDFF_Singharoy_Group.git).

The authors John W. Vant, Daipayan Sarkar, and Chitrak Gupta contributed equally to this work.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Protocol
USD 49.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Li X, Mooney P, Zheng S et al (2013) Electron counting and beam-induced motion correction enable near-atomic-resolution single-particle cryo-EM. Nat Methods 10:584

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Milazzo AC, Cheng A, Moeller A et al (2011) Initial evaluation of a direct detection device detector for single particle cryo-electron microscopy. J Struct Biol 176(3):404–408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Trabuco LG, Villa E, Mitra K et al (2008) Flexible fitting of atomic structures into electron microscopy maps using molecular dynamics. Structure 16(5):673–683

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Trabuco LG, Villa E, Schreiner E et al (2009) Molecular dynamics flexible fitting: a practical guide to combine cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography. Methods 49(2):174–80

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. McGreevy R, Teo I, Singharoy A et al (2016) Advances in the molecular dynamics flexible fitting method for cryo-EM modeling. Methods 100:50–60

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Singharoy A, Teo I, McGreevy R et al (2016) Molecular dynamics-based model refinement and validation for sub-5 angstrom cryo-electron microscopy maps. Elife 5. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16105.001

  7. Schweitzer A, Aufderheide A, Rudack T et al (2016) Structure of the human 26S proteasome at a resolution of 3.9 Å. Proc Natl Acad Sci 113(28):7816

    Google Scholar 

  8. Sun C, Benlekbir S, Venkatakrishnan P et al (2018) Structure of the alternative complex III in a supercomplex with cytochrome oxidase. Nature 557(7703):123–126

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Chen S, Zhao Y, Wang Y et al (2017) Activation and desensitization mechanism of AMPA receptor-TARP complex by Cryo-EM. Cell 170(6):1234–1246.e14

    Google Scholar 

  10. Matthies D, Dalmas O, Borgnia MJ et al (2016) Cryo-EM structures of the magnesium channel CorA reveal symmetry break upon gating. Cell 164(4):747–756

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Domnik L, Merrouch M, Goetzl S et al (2017) CODH-IV: a high-efficiency CO-scavenging CO dehydrogenase with resistance to O2. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 56(48):15466–15469

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Vant JW (2019) Resolution exchange molecular dynamics flexible fitting (ReMDFF) all you want to know about flexible fitting. https://github.com/jvant/ReMDFF_Singharoy_Group.git

  13. Humphrey W, Dalke A, Schulten K (1996) VMD: visual molecular dynamics. J Mol Graph 14(1):33–38

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Phillips JC, Braun R, Wang W et al (2005) Scalable molecular dynamics with NAMD. J Comput Chem 26(16):1781–1802

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Pettersen EF, Goddard TD, Huang CC et al (2004) UCSF chimera-a visualization system for exploratory research and analysis. J Comput Chem 25(13):1605–1612

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Wriggers W (2012) Conventions and workflows for using Situs. Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr 68(Pt 4):344–351

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Chen VB, Arendall W, Bryan R, Headd JJ et al (2010) MolProbity: all-atom structure validation for macromolecular crystallography. Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr 66(Pt 1):12–21

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Barad BA, Echols N, Wang RY-R et al (2015) EMRinger: side chain-directed model and map validation for 3D cryo-electron microscopy. Nat Methods 12(10):943–946

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Wang Y, Shekhar M, Thifault D et al (2018) Constructing atomic structural models into cryo-EM densities using molecular dynamics – Pros and cons. J Struct Biol 204(2):319–328

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Best RB, Zhu X, Shim J et al (2012) Optimization of the additive CHARMM all-atom protein force field targeting improved sampling of the backbone phi, psi and side-chain chi(1) and chi(2) dihedral angles. J Chem Theory Comput 8(9):3257–3273

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge start-up funds from the School of Molecular Sciences and Center for Applied Structure Discovery at Arizona State University, and the resources of the OLCF at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science at DOE under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, made available via the INCITE program. We also acknowledge NAMD and VMD developments supported by NIH (P41GM104601) and R01GM098243-02 for supporting our study of membrane proteins.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Abhishek Singharoy .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

About this protocol

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this protocol

Vant, J.W., Sarkar, D., Gupta, C., Shekhar, M.S., Mittal, S., Singharoy, A. (2020). Molecular Dynamics Flexible Fitting: All You Want to Know About Resolution Exchange. In: Kihara, D. (eds) Protein Structure Prediction. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2165. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0708-4_18

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0708-4_18

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-0707-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-0708-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

Publish with us

Policies and ethics