Teresa Head‐Gordon

Abstract The Adaptive Poisson–Boltzmann Solver (APBS) software was developed to solve the equations of continuum electrostatics for large biomolecular assemblages that have provided impact in the study of a broad range of chemical, biological, and biomedical applications. APBS addresses the three key technology challenges for understanding solvation and electrostatics in biomedical applications: accurate and efficient models for biomolecular solvation and electrostatics, robust and scalable software for applying those theories to biomolecular systems, and mechanisms for sharing and analyzing biomolecular electrostatics data in the scientific community. To address new research applications and advancing computational capabilities, we have continually updated APBS and its suite of accompanying software since its release in 2001. In this article, we discuss the models and capabilities that have recently been implemented within the APBS software package including a Poisson–Boltzmann analytical and a semi‐analytical solver, an optimized boundary element solver, a geometry‐based geometric flow solvation model, a graph theory‐based algorithm for determining p K a values, and an improved web‐based visualization tool for viewing electrostatics.

A re-parameterization of the standard TIP4P water model for use with Ewald techniques is introduced, providing an overall global improvement in water properties relative to several popular nonpolarizable and polarizable water potentials. Using high precision simulations, and careful application of standard analytical corrections, we show that the new TIP4P-Ew potential has a density maximum at approximately 1 degrees C, and reproduces experimental bulk-densities and the enthalpy of vaporization, DeltaH(vap), from -37.5 to 127 degrees C at 1 atm with an absolute average error of less than 1%. Structural properties are in very good agreement with x-ray scattering intensities at temperatures between 0 and 77 degrees C and dynamical properties such as self-diffusion coefficient are in excellent agreement with experiment. The parameterization approach used can be easily generalized to rehabilitate any water force field using available experimental data over a range of thermodynamic points.

Molecular force fields have been approaching a generational transition over the past several years, moving away from well-established and well-tuned, but intrinsically limited, fixed point charge models toward more intricate and expensive polarizable models that should allow more accurate description of molecular properties. The recently introduced AMOEBA force field is a leading publicly available example of this next generation of theoretical model, but to date, it has only received relatively limited validation, which we address here. We show that the AMOEBA force field is in fact a significant improvement over fixed charge models for small molecule structural and thermodynamic observables in particular, although further fine-tuning is necessary to describe solvation free energies of drug-like small molecules, dynamical properties away from ambient conditions, and possible improvements in aromatic interactions. State of the art electronic structure calculations reveal generally very good agreement with AMOEBA for demanding problems such as relative conformational energies of the alanine tetrapeptide and isomers of water sulfate complexes. AMOEBA is shown to be especially successful on protein-ligand binding and computational X-ray crystallography where polarization and accurate electrostatics are critical.

No abstract prepared.