A Kirkwood–Buff force field for the aromatic amino acids

Abstract

In a continuation of our efforts to develop a united atom non-polarizable protein force field based upon the solution theory of Kirkwood and Buff i.e., the Kirkwood–Buff Force Field (KBFF) approach, we present KBFF models for the side chains of phenylalanine, tyrosine, tryptophan, and histidine, including both tautomers of neutral histidine and doubly-protonated histidine. The force fields were specifically designed to reproduce the thermodynamic properties of mixtures over the full composition range in an attempt to provide an improved description of intermolecular interactions. The models were developed by careful parameterization of the solution phase partial charges to reproduce the experimental Kirkwood–Buff integrals for mixtures of solutes representative of the amino acid sidechains in solution. The KBFF parameters and simulated thermodynamic and structural properties are presented for the following eleven binary mixtures: benzene + methanol, benzene + toluene, toluene + methanol, toluene + phenol, toluene + p-cresol, pyrrole + methanol, indole + methanol, pyridine + methanol, pyridine + water, histidine + water, and histidine hydrochloride + water. It is argued that the present approach and models provide a reasonable description of intermolecular interactions which ensures that the required balance between solute–solute, solute–solvent, and solvent–solvent distributions is obtained.