Finite-size effect on the charging free energy of protein in explicit solvent

J Chem Theory Comput. 2015 Jan 13;11(1):215-23. doi: 10.1021/ct5008394.

Abstract

The finite-size effect in periodic system is examined for the charging free energy of protein in explicit solvent over a variety of charged states. The key to the finite-size correction is the self-energy, which is defined as the interaction energy of the solute with its own periodic images and the neutralizing background. By employing the thermodynamic-integration method with systematically varied sizes of the unit cell of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we show for ubiquitin that the self-energy corrects the finite-size effect on the charging free energy within 1 kcal/mol at total charges of -5e, -1e, neutral, and +1e and within 5 kcal/mol even for a highly charged state with +8e. We then sought the additional correction from the solvation effect using the numerical solution to the Poisson equation of the protein with implicit solvent. This correction reduces the cell-size dependence of the charging free energy at +8e to 3 kcal/mol and is well expressed as the self-energy divided by the dielectric constant of solvent water.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Molecular Dynamics Simulation*
  • Particle Size
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Solvents / chemistry*
  • Thermodynamics*
  • Water / chemistry

Substances

  • Proteins
  • Solvents
  • Water