Benoit Roux - Böcker

Covering theoretical methods and computational techniques in biomolecular research, this book focuses on approaches for the treatment of macromolecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, and bilayer membranes. It uses concepts in free energy calculations, conformational analysis, reaction rates, and transition pathways to calculate and interpret biomolecular properties gleaned from computer-generated membrane simulations. It also demonstrates comparative protein structure modeling, outlines computer-aided drug design, discusses Bayesian statistics in molecular and structural biology, and examines the RISM-SCF/MCSCF approach to chemical processes in solution.

Covering theoretical methods and computational techniques in biomolecular research, this book focuses on approaches for the treatment of macromolecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, and bilayer membranes. It uses concepts in free energy calculations, conformational analysis, reaction rates, and transition pathways to calculate and interpret biomolecular properties gleaned from computer-generated membrane simulations. It also demonstrates comparative protein structure modeling, outlines computer-aided drug design, discusses Bayesian statistics in molecular and structural biology, and examines the RISM-SCF/MCSCF approach to chemical processes in solution.

The interface between a living cell and the surrounding world plays a critical role in numerous complex biological processes. Sperm/egg fusion, virus/cell fusion, exocytosis, endocytosis, and ion permeation are a few examples of processes involving membranes. In recent years, powerful tools such as X-ray crystal­ lography, electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and infra-red and Raman spectroscopy have been developed to characterize the structure and dy­ namics of biomembranes. Despite this progress, many of the factors responsible for the function of biomembranes are still not well understood. The membrane is a very complicated supramolecular liquid-crystalline structure that is largely composed of lipids, forming a bilayer, to which proteins and other biomolecules are anchored. Often, the lipid bilayer environment is pictured as a hydropho­ bic structureless slab providing a thermodynamic driving force to partition the amino acids of a membrane protein according to their solubility. However, much of the molecular complexity of the phospholipid bilayer environment is ignored in such a simplified view. It is likely that the atomic details of the polar head­ group region and the transition from the bulk water to the hydrophobic core of the membrane are important. An understanding of the factors responsible for the function of biomembranes thus requires a better characterization at the molec­ ular level of how proteins interact with lipid molecules, of how lipids affect protein structure and of how lipid molecules might regulate protein function.

This textbook originated from the course "Simulation, Modeling, and Computations in Biophysics" that I have taught at the University of Chicago since 2011. The students typically came from a wide range of backgrounds, including biology, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and mathematics, and the course was intentionally adapted for senior undergraduate students and graduate students. This is not a highly technical book dedicated to specialists. The objective is to provide a broad survey from the physical description of a complex molecular system at the most fundamental level, to the type of phenomenological models commonly used to represent the function of large biological macromolecular machines.The key conceptual elements serving as building blocks in the formulation of different levels of approximations are introduced along the way, aiming to clarify as much as possible how they are interrelated. The only assumption is a basic familiarity with simple mathematics (calculus and integrals, ordinary differential equations, matrix linear algebra, and Fourier-Laplace transforms).