A new six site flexible acetonitrile molecular model is developed. The AMBER force field was used for description of intramolecular parameters, the atomic charges were calculated from a high level ab initio theory and finally the Lennard-Jones parameters were tuned to fit the experimental density and evaporation heat. The obtained in this way model reproduces correctly densities of water-acetonitrile mixtures as well as provides qualitative description of the dielectric permittivity and self-diffusion coefficients.

The CHARMM force field for DMPC lipids was modified in order to improve agreement with experiment for a number of important properties of hydrated lipid bilayer. The modification consists in introduction of a scaling factor 0.83 for 1-4 electrostatic interactions (between atoms separated by three covalent bonds), which provides correct transgauche ratio in the alkane tails, and recalculation of the headgroup charges on the basis of HF/6-311(d,p) ab-initio computations. Both rigid TIP3P and flexible SPC water models were used with the new lipid model, showing similar results. The new model in a 75 ns simulation has shown a correct value of the area per lipid at zero surface tension, as well as good agreement with the experiment for the electron density, structure factor, and order parameters, including those in the headgroup part of lipids.

The parametrization of classical nonbonded models of metal ions has been widely addressed in the recent years. Despite the continuous development of novel and more physically inspired functional forms, the 12‐6 Lennard‐Jones plus Coulomb potential is still the most adopted force field in molecular dynamics (MD) codes, owing to its simple form and easy implementation. However, due to the integer formal charge, unpolarizable force fields of ions may suffer from overestimated interatomic electrostatic interactions, leading to nonphysical clustering or repulsion between such full charges. The electronic continuum correction (ECC) can fix this problem through a simple inclusion of solvent polarization effects via ionic charge rescaling. In this work, the development of novel nonbonded models for mono, divalent, and highly charged metal ions is presented. For each metal species, the ionic charge has been scaled, according to the ECC. Lennard‐Jones parameters have been optimized using experimental structural and thermodynamic properties as target quantities. Performances of the proposed models are discussed and compared with the literature data, while transferability attitudes among different and well‐known water models are evaluated. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In the present work, we employed UV-VIS spectroscopy, fluorescence methods, and circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD) to study the interaction of dye Hoechst 33258, Hoechst 33342, and their derivatives to poly[d(AT)].poly[d(AT)], poly(dA).poly(dT), and DNA dodecamer with the sequence 5'-CGTATATATACG-3'. We identified three types of complexes formed by Hoechst 33258, Hoechst 33342, and methylproamine with DNA, corresponding to the binding of each drug in monomer, dimer, and tetramer forms. In a dimer complex, two dye molecules are sandwiched in the same place of the minor DNA groove. Our data show that Hoechst 33258, Hoechst 33342, and methylproamine also form complexes of the third type that reflects binding of dye associates (probably tetramers) to DNA. Substitution of a hydrogen atom in the ortho position of the phenyl ring by a methyl group has a little effect on binding of monomers to DNA. However it reduces strength of binding of tetramers to DNA. In contrast, a Hoechst derivative containing the ortho-isopropyl group in the phenyl ring exhibits a low affinity to poly(dA).poly(dT) and poly[d(AT)].poly[d(AT)] and binds to DNA only in the monomer form. This can be attributed to a sterical hindrance caused by the ortho-isopropyl group for side-by-side accommodation of two dye molecules in the minor groove. Our experiments show that mode of binding of Hoechst 33258 derivatives and their affinity for DNA depend on substituents in the ortho position of the phenyl ring of the dye molecule. A statistical mechanical treatment of binding of Hoechst 33258 and its derivatives to a polynucleotide lattice is described and used for determination of binding parameters of Hoechst 33258 and its derivatives to poly[d(AT)].poly[d(AT)] and poly(dA).poly(dT).

We present a new force field parameter set for simulating alkanes. Its functional form and parameters are chosen to make it directly compatible with the AMBER94/99/12 family of force fields implemented in the available software. The proposed parameterization enables universal description of both the conformational and thermodynamic properties of linear, branched, and cyclic alkanes. Such unification is achieved by using two essential principles: (1) reduction of the Lennard-Jones radius for all sp3 carbons to 1.75Å; (2) separate optimization of Lennard-Jones well depths for carbons with different degree of substitution. The new parameter set may prove to be optimal for description of alkyl residues in a broad range of biomolecules, from amino acids to lipids with their extended linear tails.

A molecular mechanics force field of the AMBER/OPLS family for perfluoroalkanes, noble gases, and their mixtures with alkanes has been proposed. We had to abandon the traditional Lorentz-Berthelot combining rules for the Lennard-Jones potential to be able to uniformly describe these substance classes and their mixtures. Instead, the Waldman-Hagler rules developed for noble gases were used for all of these elements except hydrogen. Hydrogen is considered to be a particular substance to which the usual Lorentz-Berthelot rules are applied. The proposed rules have little effect on the organic chemistry of H, C, N, and O elements but make it compliant with the chemistry of heavy elements. Because of assigning a relatively high partial charge of -0.37e to fluorine atoms, the new force field reproduces the mutual insolubility of higher liquid alkanes and perfluoroalkanes.

We present a new force field for zinc ion to be used in classical Molecular Dynamics. Such model has been developed according to an optimization procedure by fitting experimental quantities taken from the literature. The metal ion electrostatic charge has been scaled by a factor 0.75, according to a recently proposed polarization model which considers the electronic screening effects due to the surrounding environment. Zinc interatomic interactions have been modeled by means of the Waldman‐Hagler combination rule. It is demonstrated that the proposed force field for zinc is transferable from water solution to protein catalytic sites, offering in both the considered cases good performances in the reproduction of experimental quantities usually addressed in soft matter computer simulations.

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