A general approach for atom‐type assignment and the interconversion of molecular structure files

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In molecular modeling projects which require use of several different computer programs, one encounters problems in sharing data between programs. One difficult problem is the conversion of atom types from one program's definition to another. A second problem is the conversion of a polymer, such as a protein or polynucleotide molecule, from a “general” program, which understands molecules as a collection of atoms, to a “polymer” program, which understands molecules as a collection of molecular fragments stored in some library. We describe here a new method by which atom types are deduced from the environment of each atom. We use the Daylight Chemical Information Systems library of programs to deduce the atom types based only on the atomic symbol, connectivity and formal charge of each atom in the molecule. We also describe a method by which the polypeptide nature and sequence of a molecule can be deduced from minimal information about the atoms in the molecule. We have written a computer program which demonstrates this method. This program deduces atom types for AMBER, GRIN/GRID, CHARMm, and ALOGP. It will also produce input files for the AMBER/PREP fragment library preparation program.