Id |
Subject |
Object |
Predicate |
Lexical cue |
T64 |
0-14 |
Sentence |
denotes |
MD Simulations |
T65 |
15-148 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The crystal structure of nCOV-2019 in the complex with hACE2 (pdb id:6M0J)17 as well as the SARS-COV complex with human ACE2 (pdb id: |
T66 |
149-305 |
Sentence |
denotes |
6ACJ)33 were obtained from RCSB (www.rcsb.org).34 The RBD domain of nCOV-2019 comprises 194 residues (333–526) and SARS-COV includes 190 residues (323–512). |
T67 |
306-392 |
Sentence |
denotes |
ACE2 protein contains 597 residues (19–615) in the complex structure for both systems. |
T68 |
393-648 |
Sentence |
denotes |
All the structures including nCOV-2019, SARS-COV, and all 21 alanine substitutions of nCOV-2019 were prepared and solvated in GROMACS.35 A TIP3P water model was used for the solvent and Param99SB-ILDN AMBER force field36,37 was used for all the complexes. |
T69 |
649-842 |
Sentence |
denotes |
A few counter ions were added to each system to neutralize the charges on the RBD and ACE2 as the PBSA method for binding energy calculation is known to be problematic with high ionic strength. |
T70 |
843-885 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Each system contained about 260,000 atoms. |
T71 |
886-978 |
Sentence |
denotes |
It is important to note that, none of the RBD/ACE2 complexes studied here were glycosylated. |
T72 |
979-1098 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The glycosylation sites on RBD are far from the binding interface and do not interfere with the binding of RBD to ACE2. |
T73 |
1099-1279 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Moreover, there are nine Cys residues at the RBD of nCOV-2019 and eight of them form four pairs of disulfide bonds (Cys336-Cys361, Cys379-Cys432, Cys391-Cys525, and Cys480-Cys488). |
T74 |
1280-1372 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In total, 5000 steps of energy minimizations were done using the steepest descent algorithm. |
T75 |
1373-1527 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In all steps, the LINCS algorithm was used to constrain all bonds containing hydrogen atoms and a time step of 2 fs was used as the integration time step. |
T76 |
1528-1586 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Equilibration of all systems was performed in three steps. |
T77 |
1587-1963 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In the first step, 100,000 steps of simulation were performed using a velocity-rescaling thermostat to maintain the temperature at 310 K with a 0.1 ps coupling constant in an NVT ensemble under periodic boundary conditions and harmonic restraints on the backbone and side-chain atoms of the complex.38 A velocity rescaling thermostat was used in all other steps of simulation. |
T78 |
1964-2284 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In the next step, we performed 300,000 steps in the isothermal-isobaric NPT ensemble at a temperature of 310 K and pressure of 1 bar using a Berendsen barostat.39 This was done through decreasing the force constant of the restraint on the backbone and side-chain atoms of the complex from 1000 to 100 and finally to 10 . |
T79 |
2285-2405 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The Berendsen barostat was only used for the equilibration step because of its usefulness in rapidly correcting density. |
T80 |
2406-2543 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In the next step, the restraints were removed, and the systems were subjected to 1,000,000 steps of MD simulation under the NPT ensemble. |
T81 |
2544-2814 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In the production run, harmonic restraints were removed and all the systems were simulated using a NPT ensemble where the pressure was maintained at 1 bar using the Parrinello-Rahman barostat40 with a compressibility of 4.5 × 10–5bar–1 and a coupling constant of 0.5 ps. |
T82 |
2815-3317 |
Sentence |
denotes |
It is important to note that the Berendsen barostat was only used for the equilibration step as it was shown that this barostat can cause unrealistic temperature gradients.41 The production run lasted for 500 ns for SARS-COV and nCOV-2019 complexes and 300 ns for all the mutants with a 2 fs timestep and the particle-mesh Ewald42 for long range electrostatic interactions using the GROMACS 2018.3 package.43 All mutant systems were constructed as described before and ran for 300 ns of production run. |
T83 |
3318-3425 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In addition, the simulation time for a few mutants (Y449A, T478I, Y489A, and S494P) was extended to 500 ns. |
T84 |
3427-3467 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Gibbs Free Energy and Correlated Motions |
T85 |
3468-3874 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The last 400 ns of simulation was used to explore the dominant motions in SARS-COV, nCOV-2019 and the mutations with extended simulation, and last 200 ns for all other mutants using principal component analysis (PCA) as part of the quasiharmonic analysis method.44 For this method the rotational and translational motions of RBD of all systems were eliminated by fitting to a reference (crystal) structure. |
T86 |
3875-4118 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Next, 4000 snapshots from the last 400 ns of SARS-COV, nCOV-2019 and mutations with extended simulation time, and 2000 snapshots from last 200 ns of all other mutant systems were taken to generate the covariance matrix between Cα atoms of RBD. |
T87 |
4119-4205 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In the mutant systems with production run, the last 400 ns was used for this analysis. |
T88 |
4206-4539 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Diagonalization of this matrix resulted in a diagonal matrix of eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenvectors.43,45 The first eigenvector which indicate the first principal component was used to visualize the dominant global motions of all complexes through porcupine plots using the (PorcupinePlot.tcl) script in visual MD (VMD). |
T89 |
4540-4642 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The principal components were used to calculate and plot the approximate free energy landscape (aFEL). |
T90 |
4643-5003 |
Sentence |
denotes |
We refer to the FEL produced by this approach to be approximate in that the ensemble with respect to the first few PC’s (lowest frequency quasiharmonic modes) is not close to convergence, but the analysis can still provide valuable information and insight. g_sham, g_covar, and g_anaeig functions in GROMACS35 were used to obtain principal components and aFEL. |
T91 |
5004-5255 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The dynamic cross-correlation maps (DCCM) were obtained using the MD_TASK package to identify the correlated motions of RBD residues.46 In DCCM, the cross-correlation matrix Cij is obtained from displacement of backbone Cα atoms at a time interval Δt. |
T92 |
5256-5433 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The DCCM was constructed using the last 400 ns of SARS-COV and nCOV-2019 and the extended mutant systems and last 200 ns of all other mutant systems with a 100 ps time interval. |
T93 |
5434-5565 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Hydrogen bonds were analyzed in VMD where the distance cutoff was 3.2Å and the angle cutoff between the donor and acceptor was 30°. |
T94 |
5567-5649 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Binding Free Energy from Molecular Mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area Method |
T95 |
5650-6025 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MMPBSA) method was applied to calculate the binding energy between RBD and ACE2 in all complexes.47,48 For SARS-COV and nCOV-2019, 200 snapshots of the last 400 ns and for the mutant systems and 100 snapshots of the last 200 ns simulation were used for the calculation of binding free energies with an interval of 2 ns. |
T96 |
6026-6223 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Simulation for a few mutant systems (Y449A, T478I, Y489A, and S494P) was extended to 400 ns, and the binding energies were calculated for the last 400 ns to assess the convergence of free energies. |
T97 |
6224-6307 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The binding free energy of a ligand–receptor complex can be calculated as:1 2 3 4 5 |
T98 |
6308-6515 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In these equations, ΔEMM, ΔGbind, solv, and −TΔS are calculated in the gas phase. ΔEMM is the gas phase molecular mechanical energy changes which includes covalent, electrostatic, and van der Waals energies. |
T99 |
6516-6720 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Based on previous studies, the entropy change during binding is small and neglected in these calculations.48−50 ΔGbind, solv is the solvation free energy which comprises the polar and nonpolar components. |
T100 |
6721-6854 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The polar solvation is calculated using the MMPBSA method by setting a value of 80 and 2 for solvent and solute dielectric constants. |
T101 |
6855-6976 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The nonpolar free energy is simply estimated from the solvent accessible surface area (SASA) of the solute from the eq 5. |