Dimensionality Reduction of High Dimensional Time Series based on Artificial Neural Network

Molecular dynamics is a molecular simulation method which relies on Newtonian mechanics to simulate the motion of molecular system. In this method, some differential equations are integrated, and the results of integration are further processed to obtain the trajectory or momentum evolution process of some particles controlled by dynamic equations, and the technology of extracting the equilibrium state, motion process or related properties of classical particle system can be used. Through molecular dynamics simulation, we can obtain a series of properties of the system, which are widely used in experimental verification, theoretical derivation and other scenarios. Because it can obtain the dynamic state of macromolecules to make up for the limitations of these properties, it is widely used in the study of transmembrane proteins, polypeptide chains and other systems in life sciences. Through the kinetic path reduction of these systems, we can intuitively understand the characteristics of molecular folding, molecular motion and specific binding, which can play a very important role in the study of proteins and peptides. However, due to the characteristics of high-dimensional time series obtained by molecular dynamics simulation, it is difficult for us to pay attention to the collective state or characteristic process of the whole system in a non-equilibrium state or slow process. This is due to the difficulty in data processing and the difficulty in obtaining its characteristic function. This makes it very difficult to study the dynamic process of the whole system, especially the dynamic process at the intermediate non-equilibrium moment. It is difficult to solve this kind of problem by conventional methods, and only a few special simple systems can be solved by experience. Therefore, it is of great significance to find a method to obtain the characteristic function of the system through the trajectory obtained by molecular dynamics, and then reduce the molecular dynamics path. In order to solve this scientific problem, researchers focus on machine learning. In this study, machine learning method will be used to solve the overall non-equilibrium state of the system or the collective state of the slow process in molecular dynamics simulation. Firstly, we use this method to solve a simple one-dimensional four well model. By this method, we obtain a series of characteristic functions describing the motion process of the model. By sorting the eigenvalue contributions, we obtain some main characteristic functions describing the system. It includes the motion description of Markov smooth transition state and the motion description of four potential wells. At the same time, we use the traditional transition probability matrix to calculate. The difference between the characteristic function obtained by machine learning and the traditional method is very small, but the calculation method is simpler and more universal. After that, we apply the method to the actual scene. By solving the molecular dynamics simulation of alanine dipeptide structure in polymer protein molecule, the characteristic function of dihedral angle folding of alanine dipeptide structure was preliminarily calculated. The results were consistent with the traditional method.

Revealing Free Energy Landscape from MD Data via Conditional Angle Partition Tree

Deciphering the free energy landscape of biomolecular structure space is crucial for understanding many complex molecular processes, such as protein-protein interaction, RNA folding, and protein folding. A major source of current dynamic structure data is Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. Several methods have been proposed to investigate the free energy landscape from MD data, but all of them rely on the assumption that kinetic similarity is associated with global geometric similarity, which may lead to unsatisfactory results. In this paper, we proposed a new method called Conditional Angle Partition Tree to reveal the hierarchical free energy landscape by correlating local geometric similarity with kinetic similarity. Its application on the benchmark alanine dipeptide MD data showed a much better performance than existing methods in exploring and understanding the free energy landscape. We also applied it to the MD data of Villin HP35. Our results are more reasonable on various aspects than those from other methods and very informative on the hierarchical structure of its energy landscape.

Nanoscopic investigation of C9orf72 poly-GA oligomers on nuclear membrane disruption by a photoinducible platform

Glycine-alanine dipeptide repeats (GA DPRs) translated from the mutated C9orf72 gene have recently been correlated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). While GA DPRs aggregates have been suggested as amyloid, the biophysical features and cytotoxicity of GA DPRs oligomers has not been explored due to its unstable nature. In this study, we develop a photoinducible platform based on methoxynitrobenzene chemistry to enrich GA DPRs that allows monitoring the oligomerization process of GA DPRs in cells. By applying advanced microscopies, we examined the GA DPRs oligomerization process nanoscopically in a time-dependent manner. We provided direct evidences to demonstrate GA DPRs oligomers rather than nanofibrils disrupt nuclear membrane. Moreover, we found GA DPRs hamper nucleocytoplasmic transport in cells and cause cytosolic retention of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 in cortical neurons. Our results highlight the toxicity of GA DPRs oligomers, which is a key step toward elucidating the pathological roles of C9orf72 DPRs.

Markov state models from hierarchical density-based assignment

Markov state models (MSMs) have become one of the preferred methods for the analysis and interpretation of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of conformational transitions in biopolymers. While there is great variation in terms of implementation, a well-defined workflow involving multiple steps is often adopted. Typically, molecular coordinates are first subjected to dimensionality reduction and then clustered into small ``microstates'', which are subsequently lumped into ``macrostates'' using the information from the slowest eigenmodes. However, the microstate dynamics is often non-Markovian and long lag times are required to converge the MSM. Here we propose a variation on this typical workflow, taking advantage of hierarchical density-based clustering. When applied to simulation data, this type of clustering separates high population regions of conformational space from others that are rarely visited. In this way, density-based clustering naturally implements assignment of the data based on transitions between metastable states. As a result, the state definition becomes more consistent with the assumption of Markovianity and the timescales of the slow dynamics of the system are recovered more effectively. We present results of this simplified workflow for a model potential and MD simulations of the alanine dipeptide and the FiP35 WW domain.

Vancomycin conjugated iron oxide nanoparticles for magnetic targeting and efficient capture of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria

(a) The separation of bacteria by vancomycin conjugated Fe3O4/DOPA/Van nanoparticles and (b) H-bonding interactions between the vancomycin molecule and the d-alanyl-d-alanine dipeptide of the bacterial surface.