量子力学和分子力学组合方法及其应用

QM/MM组合方法在研究凝聚态中的化学反应及生物大分子的结构和活性之间的关系等方面已取得重要进展。这一方法的要点在于将大体系配分成几部分,根据需要对不同部分进行不同级别的处理,因此既利用了量子力学的精确性,又利用了分子力学的高效性。对QM/MM组合理论及其一些最新进展作一简单介绍,并以最近进行了几个工作为例说明QM、MM组合方法的应用。     

量子力学和分子力学组合方法

量子力学和分子力学(QM/MM)组合方法结合了量子力学的精确性和分子力学的高效性,在研究凝聚态中的化学反应及生物大分子的结构和活性等方面发挥着重要作用。本文主要介绍了QM/MM组合方法的基本原理及国内外有关QM/MM组合方法的研究进展。     

应用QM与ABEEM/MM结合的方法研究NAMI-A的结构性质

应用量子力学(QM)与ABEEM浮动电荷力场(ABEEM/MM)相结合的方法研究了抗癌药物NAMI-A在水溶液中的结构性质. 所有的结构优化都是在DFT的B3LYP方法下采用6-31G(d,p)和LanL2DZ基组完成的, 没有加入任何限制性条件. 结果表明, 优化得到的NAMI-A构型受不同环境及方法的影响均有变化. 与气相中得到的构型相比, QM/MM迭代优化得到构型要比PCM的构型变化更明显. QM/MM (ABEEM/MM)迭代优化得到的NAMI-A构型比QM/MM (OPLS-AA)的变化要小. 总之, 溶剂通过极化效应对NAMI-A结构、电荷分布及径向分布函数等性质均有影响, 客观地处理极化效应才能正确地反映QM区的性质.     

吡啶在H-MOR分子筛孔道中吸附的量子化学研究

 用24T模型和两种ONIOM2方法(QM/QM和QM/MM)研究了杂原子H-AlMOR和H-BMOR分子筛的结构、酸性及其对吡啶的吸附性能. 吸附热以及分子筛的几何结构和电子结构数据表明, H-BMOR的B酸性远远弱于H-AlMOR, 因此二者可分别应用于对酸性要求不同的催化反应. 采用QM/QM计算得到的吡啶在H-AlMOR上的吸附热(219.3 kJ/mol)与实验结果(200 kJ/mol)比较接近. QM/QM方法尽管耗时较多,但能得到更精确的结果,而QM/MM方法可用于定性研究及对模型结构的初步预测. 吸附复合物的结构参数及红外振动频率等数据表明,吡啶在两种分子筛上吸附时均发生了质子转移,生成PyH+…ZeO-离子对. 此外,吸附复合物中还存在多重氢键作用.     

DNA环境中硒代胸腺嘧啶和腺嘌呤碱基对的激发态性质和光物理机理的理论研究

应用高精度的多态完全活化自洽场二级微扰理论方法, 在量子力学/分子力学组合方法的理论框架 QM(MS-CASPT2//CASSCF)/MM下, 系统研究了DNA环境中2-硒和4-硒取代胸腺嘧啶和腺嘌呤碱基对(2SeT-A和4SeT-A)的最低5个电子态(S₀, S₁, S₂, T₂和T₁)的结构、 性质和光物理过程. QM(MS-CASPT2//CASSCF)/MM计算揭示了DNA环境中2SeT-A和4SeT-A碱基对激发态性质和光物理过程差异性的来源, 提出的机理将有助于理解DNA类似物的光物理过程, 在光动力学治疗中具有潜在的应用.     

酶催化过程的全程模拟

酶催化包括底物到活性区的输运、选择催化化学反应及产物释放等复杂过程,由于复杂的蛋白质环境效应,任一化学和非化学过程都有可能是决定酶活性的关键步骤。为了全面认识酶催化活性,我们对几类酶催化过程进行了广泛的组合量子/分子力学(QM/MM)和经典分子力学(MM)动力学模拟(MD)研究,详细地讨论了整个酶催化过程的分子机制、关键残基的作用和蛋白质环境效应,丰富了对酶催化活性的认识。随着多尺度模型和计算模拟方法的进一步完善与发展,有望实现超大复杂生物酶催化过程的全程模拟研究,为酶工程领域的相关研究提供支持。     

L1 β-Lactamase催化反应机理研究

用混合量子力学和分子力学(QM/MM)方法和密度泛函理论讨论了L1 β-Lactamase催化Nitrocefin水解的过程, 研究结果表明, 反应为多步反应: 第一步亲核进攻反应为反应的决速步骤, 并且伴随着酰胺键的断裂, 第二步反应为质子迁移反应. 同时讨论了金属锌在反应中的作用.     

发展尿素与丙氨酸二肽相互作用的ABEEM/MM可极化力场

基于ABEEM/MM浮动电荷模型，尝试建立了一个新的可合理描述尿素-丙氨酸二肽-水分子之间相互作用的可极化力场.采用量子力学(QM)ωB97X-D/6-311++G(3df, 2p)//MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ方法对(Urea)(Ala)₂的结构、电荷分布及结合能进行计算，以及HF/STO-3G方法计算电荷分布.构建尿素-丙氨酸二肽-水体系的ABEEM/MM势能函数，基于QM计算结果，优选确定相关参数.结果表明，与QM相比，ABEEM/MM获得的(Urea)(Ala)₂的键长、键角、二面角和结合能的AAD(平均绝对偏差),RMSD(均方根偏差)和RRMSD(相对均方根偏差)分别为0.000 8 nm, 0.001 4 nm, 1.2%;1.36°,1.72°,1.5%;4.10°,5.56°,5.0%;6.07 kJ·mol^-1,6.82 kJ·mol^-1和10.2%,电荷分布的线性相关系数为0.988.将上述势能函数应用于(Ala)₂(Urea)₂...     

锌酶的计算模拟:挑战与最新进展

锌酶在人体中分布非常广泛,种类繁多,是当前最受关注的金属酶之一。由于在锌配位结构上的多样性以及Zn²⁺饱和的d轨道带来的“光谱寂静”性,导致许多实验研究手段受限。计算模拟在锌酶的研究中发挥着越来越重要的作用,已经成为不可或缺的研究工具。现代量子化学计算模拟方法,特别是被视为研究生物大分子体系非常有效的QM/MM组合方法,目前已经被广泛应用于探讨复杂多变的锌配位结构以及锌酶催化反应机理。通过在QM/MM水平下开展的分子动力学模拟,可以揭示锌酶体系中结构与功能间的相互关系。此外,分子力场方法在锌酶研究中同样发挥了不可替代的作用,由于传统力场普遍无法正确描述锌配位结构,因此,锌酶分子力场的开发具有迫切的现实意义。本文总结了近年来锌酶计算模拟领域的最新进展,提出了锌酶计算研究中还有待解决的一些问题。     

Infrared spectroscopy of N-methylacetamide in water from high-level QM/MM calculations简

The infrared(IR) spectra of the N-methylacetamide molecule in water are calculated by using the MD simulation with high-level QM/MM corrections. The B3LYP and MP2 levels with 6-311++G** basis set are used for the QM region, respectively. Our results show all IR spectra at the B3LYP level are well consistent with the corresponding MP2 results. A dynamical charge fluctuation is observed for each atom along the simulation trajectories due to the electrostatic polarization(EP) effects from surrounding solvent environment. We find that the QM/MM corrected IR spectra satisfactorily reproduce the experimental vibrational features of amide I–III modes.     

Incorporation of a QM/MM buffer zone in the variational double self-consistent field method

The explicit polarization (X-Pol) potential is an electronic-structure-based polarization force field, designed for molecular dynamics simulations and modeling of biopolymers. In this approach, molecular polarization and charge transfer effects are explicitly treated by a combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical (QM/MM) scheme, and the wave function of the entire system is variationally optimized by a double self-consistent field (DSCF) method. In the present article, we introduce a QM buffer zone for a smooth transition from a QM region to an MM region. Instead of using the Mulliken charge approximation for all QM/MM interactions, the Coulombic interactions between the adjacent fragments are determined directly by electronic structure theory. The present method is designed to accelerate the speed of convergence of the total energy and charge density of the system.     

Reaction path potential for complex systems derived from combined ab initio quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical calculations

Combined ab initio quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical calculations have been widely used for modeling chemical reactions in complex systems such as enzymes, with most applications being based on the determination of a minimum energy path connecting the reactant through the transition state to the product in the enzyme environment. However, statistical mechanics sampling and reaction dynamics calculations with a combined ab initio quantum mechanical (QM) and molecular mechanical (MM) potential are still not feasible because of the computational costs associated mainly with the ab initio quantum mechanical calculations for the QM subsystem. To address this issue, a reaction path potential energy surface is developed here for statistical mechanics and dynamics simulation of chemical reactions in enzymes and other complex systems. The reaction path potential follows the ideas from the reaction path Hamiltonian of Miller, Handy and Adams for gas phase chemical reactions but is designed specifically for large systems that are described with combined ab initio quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical methods. The reaction path potential is an analytical energy expression of the combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical potential energy along the minimum energy path. An expansion around the minimum energy path is made in both the nuclear and the electronic degrees of freedom for the QM subsystem internal energy, while the energy of the subsystem described with MM remains unchanged from that in the combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical expression and the electrostatic interaction between the QM and MM subsystems is described as the interaction of the MM charges with the QM charges. The QM charges are polarizable in response to the changes in both the MM and the QM degrees of freedom through a new response kernel developed in the present work. The input data for constructing the reaction path potential are energies, vibrational frequencies, and electron density response properties of the QM subsystem along the minimum energy path, all of which can be obtained from the combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical calculations. Once constructed, it costs much less for its evaluation. Thus, the reaction path potential provides a potential energy surface for rigorous statistical mechanics and reaction dynamics calculations of complex systems. As an example, the method is applied to the statistical mechanical calculations for the potential of mean force of the chemical reaction in triosephosphate isomerase.     

Computational methods for the study of enzymic reaction mechanisms III: a perturbation plus QM/MM approach for calculating relative free energies of protonation

We describe a coupling parameter, that is, perturbation, approach to effectively create and annihilate atoms in the quantum mechanical Hamiltonian within the closed shell restricted Hartree-Fock formalism. This perturbed quantum mechanical atom (PQA) method is combined with molecular mechanics (MM) methods (PQA/MM) within a molecular dynamics simulation, to model the protein environment (MM region) effects that also make a contribution to the overall free energy change. Using the semiempirical PM3 method to model the QM region, the application of this PQA/MM method is illustrated by calculation of the relative protonation free energy of the conserved OD2 (Asp27) and the N5 (dihydrofolate) proton acceptor sites in the active site of Escherichia coli dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) with the bound nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) cofactor. For a number of choices for the QM region, the relative protonation free energy was calculated as the sum of contributions from the QM region and the interaction between the QM and MM regions via the thermodynamic integration (TI) method. The results demonstrate the importance of including the whole substrate molecule in the QM region, and the overall protein (MM) environment in determining the relative stabilities of protonation sites in the enzyme active site. The PQA/MM free energies obtained by TI were also compared with those estimated by a less computationally demanding nonperturbative method based on the linear response approximation (LRA). For some choices of QM region, the total free energies calculated using the LRA method were in very close agreement with the PQA/MM values. However, the QM and QM/MM component free energies were found to differ significantly between the two methods.     

Prediction of the mechanisms of enzyme-catalysed reactions using hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical methods

The use of hybrid methods, involving both quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics, to model the mechanism of enzyme-catalysed reactions, is discussed. Two alternative approaches to treating the electrostatic interactions between the quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical regions are studied, involving either the inclusion of this term in the electronic Hamiltonian (QM/MM), or evaluating it purely classically (MO + MM). In the latter scheme, possible problems of using force fields that are standard for macromolecular modelling are identified. The use of QM/MM schemes to investigate the mechanism of the enzymes thymidine phosphorylase (ThdPase) and protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) is described. For both systems, transition states have been identified using a PM3 Hamiltonian. For ThdPase, concerted motion of the enzyme during the course of the reaction is suggested and, for PTP, a two-step dephosphorylation reaction is indicated, both with quite low barriers.     

Lennard-Jones parameters for the combined QM/MM method using the B3LYP/6-31G*/AMBER potential

A combined DFT quantum mechanical and AMBER molecular mechanical potential (QM/MM) is presented for use in molecular modeling and molecular simulations of large biological systems. In our approach we evaluate Lennard-Jones parameters describing the interaction between the quantum mechanical (QM) part of a system, which is described at the B3LYP/6-31+G* level of theory, and the molecular mechanical (MM) part of the system, described by the AMBER force field. The Lennard-Jones parameters for this potential are obtained by calculating hydrogen bond energies and hydrogen bond geometries for a large set of bimolecular systems, in which one hydrogen bond monomer is described quantum mechanically and the other is treated molecular mechanically. We have investigated more than 100 different bimolecular systems, finding very good agreement between hydrogen bond energies and geometries obtained from the combined QM/MM calculations and results obtained at the QM level of theory, especially with respect to geometry. Therefore, based on the Lennard-Jones parameters obtained in our study, we anticipate that the B3LYP/6-31+G*/AMBER potential will be a precise tool to explore intermolecular interactions inside a protein environment.     

Simulations of liquid ammonia based on the combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) approach

Two combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) molecular dynamics simulations, namely, HF/MM and B3LYP/MM, have been performed to investigate the local structure and dynamics of liquid ammonia. The most interesting region, a sphere containing a central reference molecule and all its nearest surrounding molecules (first coordination shell), was treated by the Hartree-Fock (HF) and hybrid density functional B3LYP methods, whereas the rest of the system was described by the classical pair potentials. On the basis of both HF and B3LYP methods, it is observed that the hydrogen bonding in this peculiar liquid is weak. The structure and dynamics of this liquid are suggested to be determined by the steric packing effects, rather than by the directional hydrogen bonding interactions. Compared to previous empirical as well as Car-Parrinello (CP) molecular dynamics studies, our QM/MM simulations provide detailed information that is in better agreement with experimental data.     

Structure of the enzyme-substrate complex for guanosine triphosphate hydrolysis by elongation factor EF-Tu: Comparison of quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics results

The equilibrium geometric configurations of the enzyme-substrate complex for guanosine triphosphate hydrolysis by elongation factor EF-Tu calculated using two theoretical approaches, a combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) method and a molecular dynamics method, are compared. The reaction complex geometry determined by the QM/MM method is consistent with the accepted reaction mechanism, whereas, in the enzyme-substrate structure predicted by the molecular dynamics method with the CHARMM force field, the relative positions of the nucleophilic reagent (water molecules) and the base (a histidine side chain) do not correspond to the optimal reagent arrangement.     

MM and QM/MM Modeling of Threonyl-tRNA Synthetase: Model Testing and Simulations

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are centrally important enzymes in protein synthesis. We have investigated threonyl-tRNA synthetase from E. coli, complexed with reactants, using molecular mechanics and combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) techniques. These modeling methods have the potential to provide molecular level understanding of enzyme catalytic processes. Modeling of this enzyme presents a number of challenges. The procedure of system preparation and testing is described in detail. For example, the number of metal ions at the active site, and their positions, were investigated. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that the system is most stable when it contains only one magnesium ion, and the zinc ion is removed. Two different QM/MM methods were tested in models based on the findings of MM molecular dynamics simulations. AM1/CHARMM calculations resulted in unrealistic structures for the phosphates in this system. This is apparently due to an error of AM1. PM3/CHARMM calculations proved to be more suitable for this enzyme system. These results will provide a useful basis for future modeling investigations of the enzyme mechanism and dynamics.