Minimization of empirical energy functions in proteins including hydrophobic surface area effects

Abstract We present analytical expressions to calculate the gradient of the water‐accessible surface area of proteins with respect to Cartesian coordinates and dihedral angles. A detailed mathematical analysis leads to corrected equations for the gradient calculation used previously in the ANAREA program. To study the hydrophobic effect of solvent‐protein interactions, our expressions have been implemented to further improve the program package FANTOM. We used this version of FANTOM to minimize the ECEPP/2 and the hydrophobic energy of tendamistat. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.