High-Level ab Initio Calculations To Improve Protein Backbone Dihedral Parameters

We present new molecular mechanical dihedral parameters for the Ramachandran angles ϕ and ψ of a protein backbone based on high-level ab initio molecular orbital calculations for hydrogen-blocked or methyl-blocked glycine and alanine dipeptides. Fully relaxed 15° (ϕ, ψ) contour maps were calculated at the MP2/6-31G(d) level of theory. Finding out the lowest energy path for ϕ (or ψ) to change from −180° to 180° in the contour map, we performed a DF-LCCSD(T0)/Aug-cc-pVTZ//DF-LMP2/Aug-cc-pVTZ level calculation to get the torsional energy profiles of ϕ (or ψ). Molecular mechanical torsion profiles with AMBER force field variants significantly differed from the ab initio profiles, so we derived new molecular mechanical dihedral parameters of a protein backbone to fit the ab initio profiles.