Difference between revisions of "2017 AMBER tutorial with 4qmz"

Revision as of 15:05, 3 April 2017

In this tutorial, we will learn how to run a molecular dynamics simulation of a protein-ligand complex. We will then post-process that simulation by calculating structural fluctuations (with RMSD) and free energies of binding (MM-GBSA).

Introduction

Amber -Assisted Model Building with Energy Refinement - is a multi-program suite for macromolecular simulations.Amber is distributed in two parts: AmberTools15 and Amber14.Amber14 is the most recent version of the software and it includes new force fields such as ff14SB. In addition, in this release, more features from sander have been added to pmemd for both CPU and GPU platforms, including performance improvements, and support for extra points, multi-dimension replica exchange, a Monte Carlo barostat, ScaledMD, Jarzynski sampling, explicit solvent constant pH, GBSA, and hydrogen mass repartitioning. Support is also included for the latest Kepler, Titan and GTX7xx GPUs expanded options for Poisson-Boltzmann solvation calculations, accelerated molecular dynamics, additional features in sander pmemd code, and expanded methods for free energy calculations. Our lab is set up with Ambe r14 and the latest update of AmberTools15 which contains the programs such as antechamber and tleap to set up your simulation. The Amber 14 Manualis available to get started with using Amber14. You can search the document for keywords such as "tleap" if you use Adobe Acrobat to view the file. Additionally, AmberTools Reference Manualis another reference for the programs available under Amber tools.

Here below are some of the programs available in both Amber and AmberTools:

1.LEaP: LEaP is an X-windows-based program that provides for basic model building and Amber coordinate parameter/topology input file creation. It includes a molecular editor which allows for building residues and manipulating molecules.

2.ANTECHAMBER: This program suite automates the process of developing force field descriptors for most organic molecules. It starts with structures (usually in PDB format), and generates files that can be read into LEaP for use in molecular modeling. The force field description that is generated is designed to be compatible with the usual Amber force fields for proteins and nucleic acids.

3.SANDER: Sander is short for Simulated annealing with NMR-derived energy restraints. This allows for NMR refinement based on NOE-derived distance restraints, torsion angle restraints, and penalty functions based on chemical shifts and NOESY volumes. Sander is also the "main" program used for molecular dynamics simulations, and is also used for replica-exchange, thermodynamic integration, and potential of mean force (PMF) calculations. Sander also includes QM/MM capability.

4.PMEMD: This is an extensively-modified version (originally by Bob Duke) of the sander program, optimized for periodic, PME simulations, and for GB simulations. It is faster than sander and scales better on parallel machines.

5.PTRAJandCPPTRAJ: These are used to analyze MD trajectories, computing a variety of things, like RMS deviation from a reference structure, hydrogen bonding analysis, time-correlation functions, diffusional behavior, and so on.

6.MM_PBSA andMM_PBSA.py: These are scripts that automate post-processing of MD trajectories, to analyze energetics using continuum solvent ideas. It can be used to break energies energies into "pieces" arising from different residues, and to estimate free energy differences between conformational basins.

7.NAB: Originally named as "nucleic acid builder", NAB is a specialized language for writing programs that manipulate molecules and carry out molecular mechanics or distance-geometry based modeling. NAB provides and interface to Poisson-Boltzmann and RISM integral-equation solvent models. The "amberlite" package uses NAB to study protein-ligand interaction energetics. There is also a mailing list available as an additional resource. What you can do with it is: you document your questions and sent to this mail address, some specialists of Amber will be assigned to reply your email and help you.

4qmz:

Organizing Directories It makes things easier to organize your files in a clean and logical way. The following directory structure and naming scheme is a convenient way to organize your files. We could make these directories first before doing anything further

  ~username/AMS536-Spring2016/Amber_Tutorial/000.parameters/
                                             001.tleap_build/ 
                                             002.equilibration/       
                                             003.production/
                                             004.analysis/