BrownDye Tutorial

This tutorial will walk you through two different types of BD simulations on the Thrombin-Thrombomodulin system, which is an important component of the blood-clotting cascade. Thrombin consists of 295 amino acids, and thrombomodulin consists of 117 amino acids. (My thanks to Adam Van Wynsberghe for the necessary data on these two molecules.) Another part of the tutorial deals with a bifunctional enzyme and substrate channeling.

BrownDye can be easily installed on Linux or Mac OS X. If you have Windows, you can install Cygwin , which provides a free Linux emulator, and then to install BrownDye using the Cygwin terminal. Go here for more details. Other software required will be APBS , Ocaml, and VMD for the visualization.

Running on a Linux Computer

Other necessary software is the Ocaml compiler, which is free and can be obtained from here . If you are using Ubuntu or a similar Linux based on Debian, you can just type
sudo apt-get install ocaml 
You will also need APBS; this can also quickly be installed on Ubuntu by typing
sudo apt-get install apbs 
The following steps will also work on the Mac terminal and Windows Cygwin terminal. You can install BrownDye on your machine by going to the website , downloading the file browndye.tar.gz, moving the file to a directory of your choice, and typing
tar xvfz browndye.tar.gz
cd browndye
make all
All of the executables are now in the directory browndye/bin; you need to add this directory to your path. If you use a bash shell, this can be done by typing
PATH=$PATH:fullpath/browndye/bin
where fullpath is the full path name of the directory containing the browndye distribution. If you now want to run the thrombin-thrombomodulin tutorial, go to browndye/thrombin-example.

The atomic coordinates for thrombin and thrombomodulin are in files t.pqr and m.pqr. Because BrownDye works primarily with XML files, you must convert this two files to an equivalent XML format:

pqr2xml < t.pqr > t-atoms.xml
pqr2xml < m.pqr > m-atoms.xml
Next, you must generate the electrostatic grids, in dx format, using APBS:
apbs t.in
apbs m.in
where the input files t.in and m.in are provided. The grids are output to t.dx and m.dx. Throughout this session, thrombin will be denoted by the prefix "t" while thrombomodulin will be denoted by prefix "m". Be sure to take note of the Debye length in the APBS output if you don't feel like calculating it by hand; it will be needed later. (Some older versions of APBS will name the output files t-PE0.dx and m-PE0.dx; if that happens, be sure to rename the files.)

In addition to atomic coordinates and grids, the third key input is the set of reaction criteria. This can be generated from the two coordinate files t-atoms.xml and m-atoms.xml, and a file, protein-protein-contacts.xml, which describes which pairs of atom types can define a contact (It is actually stored as protein-protein-contacts.xml.bak; you need to copy from this file.) The program make_rxn_pairs takes these three files and a search distance to generate a file of reaction pairs. This assumes that the coordinates of the two molecules are consistent with the bound state.

make_rxn_pairs -mol0 t-atoms.xml -mol1 m-atoms.xml -ctypes protein-protein-contacts.xml -dist 6.0 > t-m-pairs.xml
The resulting file still is not suitable for input into the simulation programs, however. I've made the program general enough to have more than one reaction in a simulation, so one could envision having several such reaction pair files that would need to combined into a final reaction description file. For now, you can use the program make_rxn_file, which generates an input file for the case of one reaction:
make_rxn_file -pairs t-m-pairs.xml -distance 4.9 -nneeded 3 > t-m-rxns.xml
This generates a reaction description file which tells the simulation programs that if any 3 of the atom pairs approach within 4.9 Angstroms, a reaction occurs.

A note: if you don't feel like typing the above commands in, especially if you make changes and need to do it repeatedly, I have included a Makefile in the example directory. Typing

make all
should run the above commands.

The remaining pieces of information are contained in the file input.xml. (This must be copied from the file input.xml.bak.) It contains, among other things, information on the solvent, information on each molecule, and parameters governing the simulation itself. For the sake of efficiency, the larger molecule should be "molecule0" if there is a large size difference. Also, each molecule is assigned a prefix as mentioned above; these are used in naming the intermediate files that are generated in the next step:

bd_top input.xml
The bd_top program is written in Ocaml using a Unix "make"-like utility that I wrote to help orchestrate the creation of the files. Like "make", if an intermediate file is changed or replaced, running bd_top (which is analogous to a Makefile) will run only those commands necessary to re-generate files that depend on the updated file. Unlike "make", this utility, which I call the "Orchestrator", can also read information from xml files and have chains of dependent calculations (eventually I want to write a version in Python so it will look more familiar to most people). So, when the command is executed, the following files are generated for thrombin: The corresponding files with prefix "m" are also generated for thrombomodulin. In addition, the following file is generated:

The following files are generated for both molecules:

The nice thing about these intermediate files is that any of them can be replaced or changed, and then bd_top run again to update everything. For example, right now I'm using a simple test-charge approximation by default, but one could easily generate effective charges using another program such as SDA, convert the output into the appropriate XML format, replace t-charges.xml and m-charges.xml, and run bd_top again.

Another useability note: if you want to clean things up, you can delete all *.dx and *.xml files; the two xml files that you need to get started are also available as input.xml.bak and protein-protein-contacts.xml.bak.

At this point, you can choose to do a simulation of one trajectory at a time, or you can do a weighted-ensemble simulation. In general, the weighted-ensemble method is not as efficient at the single-trajectory method unless the probability of a reaction event is very low.

One trajectory at a time

To perform the single-trajectory simulation, the following is executed:

nam_simulation t-m-simulation.xml
The results end up in results.xml, as designated in input.xml. As the simulation proceeds, you can look at results.xml to see the simulation progress. (This is called nam_simulation after Northrup, Allison, and McCammon, who came up with the first algorithm of this type. This code uses a fancy variation on the orginal algorithm.).

At any point, you can use compute_rate_constant to analyze results.xml and obtain an estimate of and 95% confidence bounds on the reaction rate constant in units of M/s. The file t-m-solvent.xml must also be given to this program:

compute_rate_constant < results.xml 
This will put the rate constant results to standard output.

Visualization

To visualize a trajectory leading to a reaction, you must include the line

<trajectory-file> trajectory </trajectory-file>
in the input file, run bd_top and nam_simulation again. The value trajectory gives its names to the resulting trajectory files, and can be what you want. Because the files can get quite large, you might want to also include a line such as
< n-steps-per-output > 10 < /n-steps-per-output >
which causes only every 10th configuration to be output. At the end, the files trajectory0.xml and trajectory0.index.xml will be generated. The first file contains the actual trajectories in a compressed format, and the second file functions as an index to the first file. If you are running with more than one thread, more files like this will also be generated, with names trajectory1.xm1 , trajectory1.index.xml , etc., with one pair of files per thread. After the initial trajectory files are generated, they must be processed further. For example, if you wish to view a trajectory that results in a reaction, you must find such a trajectory by running
process_trajectories -traj trajectory0.xml -index trajectory0.index.xml -srxn association
which prints out the numbers of reactive trajectories. Then, pick one of the numbers, say 8, and run
process_trajectories -traj trajectory0.xml -index trajectory0.index.xml -n 8 > trajectory.xml
This uncompresses the contents of trajectory0.xml and outputs the desired trajectory into trajectory.xml. At this point, you can cut down even further on the number of configurations by adding to the above to get
process_trajectories -traj trajectory0.xml -index trajectory0.index.xml -n 8 -nstride 10 > trajectory.xml
which outputs only every tenth configuration in trajectory0.xml. The final step is to generate an xyz-format file for visualization by VMD, which is obtained by running
xyz_trajectory -mol0 t-atoms.xml -mol1 m-atoms.xml -trajf trajectory.xml > trajectory.xyz
This file can be very large, since all of the atom positions for every configuration are output to traj.xyz, so it can be important to reduce the number of trajectories upstream. This file then can be passed to VMD for visualization. If you are worried about the size of the file, you can run
xyz_trajectory -mol0 t-atoms.xml -mol1 m-atoms.xml -trajf trajectory.xml -trial
which will output nothing except an estimate of the file size. If it looks like it might be too large, you can go back and increase the stride argument to process_trajectories . At last, you can start up VMD, load in the xyz file, and watch the animation.

Weighted Ensemble Method

To perform the weighted-ensemble method, you must first generate the bins for the system copies:

build_bins t-m-simulation.xml
The number of system copies used in the bin-building process are given in input.xml in the n-copies tag. As it runs, reaction coordinate numbers will go scrolling past; they should keep getting smaller and eventually stop. If that does not happen, i.e., the numbers keep on going, you might need to increase the number of system copies, or it might be that your reaction criterion is unattainable. Assuming it converges, the bin information is placed in t-m-bins.xml. The actual weighted-ensemble simulation is then run:
we_simulation t-m-simulation.xml
As before, the results are output to results.xml. In each row of output numbers, the right-most number is the flux of system copies that escaped without reaction, while the other ones are reactive fluxes. So, even for a rare reaction event, you should at least see small numbers for the reactive fluxes after the system has reacted steady-state. This can be visually examined at any point, and can also be analyzed as above, but with a different program:
compute_rate_constant_we -sim results.xml -solvent t-m-solvent.xml
Because the streams of numbers are autocorrelated, a more sophisticated approach for computing confidence intervals is used, and if there are not enough data points, the program compute_rate_constant_we will simply refuse to provide an answer.

Channeling Tutorial

We also present a very simple and crude model to demonstrate substrate channeling, which occurs when an enzyme molecule has two different active sites for two different reactions, and the product of one reaction serves as the substrate for the other reaction. Often this situation is realized when two separate enzymes are bound to each other. One medically interesting system is that of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) and thymidylate synthase (TS). The thymidylate synthase caries out the reaction

5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate + deoxyuridine monophosphate ↔ dihydrofolate + thymidine monophosphate

The dihydrofolate is then reduced by the DHFR. In some organisms, the two enzymes are joined together, and there is some evidence that a positivly charged channel helps convey the negatively charged dihydrofolate from one active site to another. A Brownian dynamics simulation by Elcock et al. some years ago on enzyme complex from the protozoan that causes a nasty tropical disease, leishmaniasis, showed a very pronounced channeling effect. We unfortunately cannot reproduce that here since the coordinates of that enzyme complex are not publicly available, but I have set up a simple system using the complex from the agent of African sleeping sickness, another nasty disease.

The enzyme complex is 3QGT from the protein data bank. It is missing many residues in the region between the two different enzymes, so we may not have a very complete channel in this model. Furthermore, work would need to be done to find the binding mode of the dihydrofolate to the DHFR active site. So, for now, we will need to settle for a small sphere with a -2 charge to assess the hypothesis of channeling. The simulation starts the "substrate" in the TS active site. The complex itself is a dimer, with two TS and two DHFR units. The subtrate is advanced until it either reacts or escapes. You can explore the effect of electrostatic channeling by changing the charge on the substrate sphere.

You will find that the effect here is noticeable, but not dramatic; this may because of the incompleteness of the model or actual reality. There are other structures of the DHFR-TS complex in the protein data bank from medically interesting organisms. Perhaps some refining of the model along with upcoming improvements in Browndye such as flexible molecules will lead to some interesting results.

The data for the channeling simulation is found in the channeling-example directory in the Browndye distribution.

Ideas for fun

You can change the random number generator seed, under the seed tag. Good to do if you're bored but don't have the energy to do anything else.

One parameter to play with is the reaction criterion distance, which is the -distance input to the program make_rxn_file. The number given in the tutorial and the Makefile is 4.9, but you can change that by re-running make_rxn_file or by changing it in the Makefile.

You can also change the ionic strength in files t.in and m.in and generate new APBS grids. Note: you must take note of the new Debye length and put that value in the file input.xml. So far, it is not possible to automatically get the Debye length from the output DX file of APBS.

If your machine has several processors, you can change the value under the tag n-threads in file input.xml and see it run under several processors. So far, it runs only on shared-memory machines using pthreads. Even on a single-processor machine, you can still run several threads, but it does not make the programs go any faster.

A final useability note: Most of the programs will output a description of themselves and their options if you type in

program -help

Running on an Opal Server

The flow of events is the same as above, except it is done on one of the clusters via a web browser, and for now, the bd_top and nam_simulation steps are combined into one step.

The following steps are used to generate the reaction pairs file:

The following steps are used to generate the reaction description file:

The following steps are used to run bd_top and nam_simulation

Notes on Running BrownDye on Windows and Macintosh

The Cygwin package is easy to install; you go to the website and download and run the setup.exe file. The only part that requires some effort is finding the necessary packages to install. If you do nothing, Cygwin installs a minimal subset, but to run Browndye you need gcc, make, autoconf, and ocaml. You could install all optional packages, but it makes for a huge and lengthy download. Once Cygwin is installed, you can pop open a terminal window, giving you access to a directory tree just like any other Unix system. If you are missing packages, you can run setup.exe again, which will again present you the choice of packages.

Another option for Windows is to install Ubuntu Linux using Wubi. From Windows, you download and run the Wubi installer, which in turn downloads and installs Ubuntu Linux and the boot-up tools necessary to boot into either Windows or Ubuntu. No disk partioning is necessary, making it very easy. The download usually takes several minutes depending on the speed of your connection. Then, when you restart your computer, you are given a choice between booting into Windows or Ubuntu. Afterwards, if you want, Ubuntu is easily deleted by running the Wubi Uninstall program from within Windows.

In order to obtain gcc for OS X on the Mac, you need to go to Apple's website and register as a developer. If you are doing your work in a university, this is free. Then, you install the XCode Developer tools, which include gcc. Ocaml is available for the Mac from the Ocaml website.

References

Huber, GA and McCammon, JA. Browndye: A Software Package for Brownian Dynamics. Computer Physics Communications 181, 1896-1905 (2010)

Ermak, DL and McCammon, JA. Brownian Dynamics with Hydrodynamic Interactions, J. Chem. Phys. 69, 1352-1360 (1978)

Northrup SH, Allison SA and McCammon JA. Brownian Dynamics Simulation of Diffusion-Influenced Bimolecular Reactions J. Chem. Phys. 80, 1517-1526

Luty BA, McCammon JA and Zhou HX. Diffusive Reaction-Rates From Brownian Dynamics Simulations - Replacing the Outer Cutoff Surface by an Analytical Treatment, J. Chem. Phys. 97, 5682-5686 (1992)

Huber GA and Kim S. Weighted-ensemble Brownian dynamics simulations for protein association reactions, Biophys. J 70, 97-110 (1996)

Gabdoulline RR and Wade RC. Effective charges for macromolecules in solvent, J. Phys. Chem 100, 3868-3878 (1996)