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ブラウン動力学（Brownian Dynamics；BD）法は溶媒を明示的に扱わないため計算を高速化することができる。従来のBD法は水環境でのタンパク質シミュレーションを対象にしていたため、膜タンパク質には適用できなかった。本研究では膜環境をも非明示的に再現することによってBD法を膜タンパク質のシミュレーションに適用できるように拡張した。αヘリックス構造のポリアラニンペプチドやパピロマーウイルス由来のE5タンパク質、蜂毒のメリチンをモデルとしてシミュレーションした結果、疎水性であるポリアラニンとE5膜タンパク質は膜中で安定に存在した。また、両親媒性であるメリチンペプチドは膜表面に安定に結合していた。これらの結果から、本膜モデルを用いたBD法は膜タンパク質のシミュレーションに有効であると考えられる。

A new simple implicit solvent model, effective charge (EC) model, was introduced into the Brownian dynamics algorithm based on AMBER united-atom force field. In the EC model, an atomic charge was decreased as a function of solvent-accessible surface area of the atom. We carried out the Brownian dynamics simulations of a 28-mer ββα fold peptide using four implicit solvent models: a generalized Born/solvent-accessible surface area (GB/SA) model, a solvent-accessible surface area (SA) based solvent model, a SA in combination with distance-dependent dielectric (DD/SA) and the EC combined with DD/SA (DD/SA/EC) model; and the calculated results on structure and dynamics of the peptide were compared with those of molecular dynamics simulation using explicit solvent model. Several artifacts were observed in the simulation using the GB/SA model. On the other hand, simulation using the DD/SA and DD/SA/EC implicit solvent models were free from such artifacts. Especially BD with the DD/SA/EC model gave the most stable trajectory as judged by root mean square deviations from the initial structure without large computational cost.

We developed the object-oriented class library "YLO" to study molecular structures. YLO is written in C++ and composed of a set of classes, which are a kind of program units, resembling subroutines in Fortran. Each class performs a certain job independently in a whole program. YLO deals with non-organic, organic molecules and biological macromolecules. The coordinate file of a molecule is read / written in PDB format. Using the YLO library, one can make various types of application programs efficiently, such as Monte Carlo simulator, Genetic Algorithm optimizer and so on.

We report the implementation of an atomistic Brownian dynamics simulation of proteins. A protein was described by united-atom model with AMBER91 force field. The solvent was treated by distance-dependent dielectric/surface area model. The computation time of the Brownian dynamics and the calculated results on structure and dynamics of 28-mer ββα fold peptide with the implicit solvent model were compared with those of molecular dynamics simulation with explicit solvent. The Brownian dynamics simulation was 53 times faster than molecular dynamics simulation with explicit solvent. The simulation was stable and the artifacts often observed in simulations at vacuum condition were reduced. The results indicate that the Brownian dynamics with the implicit solvent model can be widely used in studies of protein dynamics by long time simulation in future.