Application of steered molecular dynamics (SMD) to study DNA–drug complexes and probing helical propensity of amino acids

We present the preliminary results of two computer experiments involving the application of an external force to molecular systems. In the first experiment we simulated the process of pulling out a simple intercalator, the 9-aminoacridine molecule, from its complex with a short DNA oligonucleotide in aqueous solution. Removing a drug from the DNA is assumed to be an opposite process to the complex formation. The force and energy profiles suggest that formation of the DNA–9-aminoacridine complex is preferred when the acridine approaches the DNA from the minor groove rather than the major groove side. For a given mode of pulling the intercalation process is also shown to be nucleotide sequence dependent. In another computer experiment we performed a series of molecular dynamics simulations for stretching short, containing 15 amino acids, helical polypeptides in aqueous solution using an external force. The purpose of these simulations is to check whether this type of approach is sensitive enough to probe the sequence dependent helical propensity of short polypeptides.