| 1. |
- Aho, Noora, et al.
(författare)
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Scalable Constant pH Molecular Dynamics in GROMACS
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1549-9618 .- 1549-9626. ; 18:10, s. 6148-6160
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations are used routinely to compute atomistic trajectories of complex systems. Systems are simulated in various ensembles, depending on the experimental conditions one aims to mimic. While constant energy, temperature, volume, and pressure are rather straightforward to model, pH, which is an equally important parameter in experiments, is more difficult to account for in simulations. Although a constant pH algorithm based on the λ-dynamics approach by Brooks and co-workers [Kong, X.; Brooks III, C. L. J. Chem. Phys.1996, 105, 2414–2423] was implemented in a fork of the GROMACS molecular dynamics program, uptake has been rather limited, presumably due to the poor scaling of that code with respect to the number of titratable sites. To overcome this limitation, we implemented an alternative scheme for interpolating the Hamiltonians of the protonation states that makes the constant pH molecular dynamics simulations almost as fast as a normal MD simulation with GROMACS. In addition, we implemented a simpler scheme, called multisite representation, for modeling side chains with multiple titratable sites, such as imidazole rings. This scheme, which is based on constraining the sum of the λ-coordinates, not only reduces the complexity associated with parametrizing the intramolecular interactions between the sites but also is easily extendable to other molecules with multiple titratable sites. With the combination of a more efficient interpolation scheme and multisite representation of titratable groups, we anticipate a rapid uptake of constant pH molecular dynamics simulations within the GROMACS user community.
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| 2. |
- Brown, A. G. A., et al.
(författare)
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Gaia Data Release 1 Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 595
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. At about 1000 days after the launch of Gaia we present the first Gaia data release, Gaia DR1, consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7. Aims. A summary of Gaia DR1 is presented along with illustrations of the scientific quality of the data, followed by a discussion of the limitations due to the preliminary nature of this release. Methods. The raw data collected by Gaia during the first 14 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) and turned into an astrometric and photometric catalogue. Results. Gaia DR1 consists of three components: a primary astrometric data set which contains the positions, parallaxes, and mean proper motions for about 2 million of the brightest stars in common with the HIPPARCOS and Tycho-2 catalogues - a realisation of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) - and a secondary astrometric data set containing the positions for an additional 1.1 billion sources. The second component is the photometric data set, consisting of mean G-band magnitudes for all sources. The G-band light curves and the characteristics of similar to 3000 Cepheid and RR Lyrae stars, observed at high cadence around the south ecliptic pole, form the third component. For the primary astrometric data set the typical uncertainty is about 0.3 mas for the positions and parallaxes, and about 1 mas yr(-1) for the proper motions. A systematic component of similar to 0.3 mas should be added to the parallax uncertainties. For the subset of similar to 94 000 HIPPARCOS stars in the primary data set, the proper motions are much more precise at about 0.06 mas yr(-1). For the secondary astrometric data set, the typical uncertainty of the positions is similar to 10 mas. The median uncertainties on the mean G-band magnitudes range from the mmag level to similar to 0.03 mag over the magnitude range 5 to 20.7. Conclusions. Gaia DR1 is an important milestone ahead of the next Gaia data release, which will feature five-parameter astrometry for all sources. Extensive validation shows that Gaia DR1 represents a major advance in the mapping of the heavens and the availability of basic stellar data that underpin observational astrophysics. Nevertheless, the very preliminary nature of this first Gaia data release does lead to a number of important limitations to the data quality which should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the data.
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| 3. |
- Buslaev, Pavel, et al.
(författare)
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Best Practices in Constant pH MD Simulations : Accuracy and Sampling
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1549-9618 .- 1549-9626. ; 18:10, s. 6148-6160
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Various approaches have been proposed to include the effect of pH in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Among these, the A-dynamics approach proposed by Brooks and co-workers [Kong, X.; Brooks III, C. L. J. Chem. Phys. 1996, 105, 2414-2423] can be performed with little computational overhead and hfor each typeence be used to routinely perform MD simulations at microsecond time scales, as shown in the accompanying paper [Aho, N. et al. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2022, DOI: 10.1021 /acs.jctc.2c00516]. At such time scales, however, the accuracy of the molecular mechanics force field and the parametrization becomes critical. Here, we address these issues and provide the community with guidelines on how to set up and perform long time scale constant pH MD simulations. We found that barriers associated with the torsions of side chains in the CHARMM36m force field are too high for reaching convergence in constant pH MD simulations on microsecond time scales. To avoid the high computational cost of extending the sampling, we propose small modifications to the force field to selectively reduce the torsional barriers. We demonstrate that with such modifications we obtain converged distributions of both protonation and torsional degrees of freedom and hence consistent pK(a) estimates, while the sampling of the overall configurational space accessible to proteins is unaffected as compared to normal MD simulations. We also show that the results of constant pH MD depend on the accuracy of the correction potentials. While these potentials are typically obtained by fitting a low-order polynomial to calculated free energy profiles, we find that higher order fits are essential to provide accurate and consistent results. By resolving problems in accuracy and sampling, the work described in this and the accompanying paper paves the way to the widespread application of constant pH MD beyond pK(a) prediction.
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| 4. |
- Buslaev, Pavel, et al.
(författare)
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Scalable Constant pH Molecular Dynamics in GROMACS
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1549-9618 .- 1549-9626. ; 18:10, s. 6148-6160
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations are used routinely to compute atomistic trajectories of complex systems. Systems are simulated in various ensembles, depending on the experimental conditions one aims to mimic. While constant energy, temperature, volume, and pressure are rather straightforward to model, pH, which is an equally important parameter in experiments, is more difficult to account for in simulations. Although a constant pH algorithm based on the λ-dynamics approach by Brooks and co-workers [Kong, X.; Brooks III, C. L. J. Chem. Phys.1996, 105, 2414–2423] was implemented in a fork of the GROMACS molecular dynamics program, uptake has been rather limited, presumably due to the poor scaling of that code with respect to the number of titratable sites. To overcome this limitation, we implemented an alternative scheme for interpolating the Hamiltonians of the protonation states that makes the constant pH molecular dynamics simulations almost as fast as a normal MD simulation with GROMACS. In addition, we implemented a simpler scheme, called multisite representation, for modeling side chains with multiple titratable sites, such as imidazole rings. This scheme, which is based on constraining the sum of the λ-coordinates, not only reduces the complexity associated with parametrizing the intramolecular interactions between the sites but also is easily extendable to other molecules with multiple titratable sites. With the combination of a more efficient interpolation scheme and multisite representation of titratable groups, we anticipate a rapid uptake of constant pH molecular dynamics simulations within the GROMACS user community.
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| 5. |
- Clementini, G., et al.
(författare)
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Testing parallaxes with local Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 605
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Parallaxes for 331 classical Cepheids, 31 Type II Cepheids, and 364 RR Lyrae stars in common between Gaia and the HIPPARCOS and Tycho-2 catalogues are published in Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) as part of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS). Aims. In order to test these first parallax measurements of the primary standard candles of the cosmological distance ladder, which involve astrometry collected by Gaia during the initial 14 months of science operation, we compared them with literature estimates and derived new period-luminosity (PL), period-Wesenheit (PW) relations for classical and Type II Cepheids and infrared PL, PL-metallicity (PLZ), and optical luminosity-metallicity (MV-[Fe/H]) relations for the RR Lyrae stars, with zero points based on TGAS.Methods. Classical Cepheids were carefully selected in order to discard known or suspected binary systems. The final sample comprises 102 fundamental mode pulsators with periods ranging from 1.68 to 51.66 days (of which 33 with sigma(omega)/omega < 0 : 5). The Type II Cepheids include a total of 26 W Virginis and BL Herculis stars spanning the period range from 1.16 to 30.00 days (of which only 7 with sigma(omega)/omega 0 : 5). The RR Lyrae stars include 200 sources with pulsation period ranging from 0.27 to 0.80 days (of which 112 with sigma(omega)/omega < 0 : 5). The new relations were computed using multi- band (V; I; J; K-s) photometry and spectroscopic metal abundances available in the literature, and by applying three alternative approaches: (i) linear least-squares fitting of the absolute magnitudes inferred from direct transformation of the TGAS parallaxes; (ii) adopting astrometry-based luminosities; and (iii) using a Bayesian fitting approach. The last two methods work in parallax space where parallaxes are used directly, thus maintaining symmetrical errors and allowing negative parallaxes to be used. The TGAS-based PL; PW; PLZ, and MV [Fe/H] relations are discussed by comparing the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud provided by different types of pulsating stars and alternative fitting methods.Results. Good agreement is found from direct comparison of the parallaxes of RR Lyrae stars for which both TGAS and HST measurements are available. Similarly, very good agreement is found between the TGAS values and the parallaxes inferred from the absolute magnitudes of Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars analysed with the Baade-Wesselink method. TGAS values also compare favourably with the parallaxes inferred by theoretical model fitting of the multi-band light curves for two of the three classical Cepheids and one RR Lyrae star, which were analysed with this technique in our samples. The K-band PL relations show the significant improvement of the TGAS parallaxes for Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars with respect to the HIPPARCOS measurements. This is particularly true for the RR Lyrae stars for which improvement in quality and statistics is impressive.Conclusions. TGAS parallaxes bring a significant added value to the previous HIPPARCOS estimates. The relations presented in this paper represent the first Gaia-calibrated relations and form a work-in-progress milestone report in the wait for Gaia-only parallaxes of which a first solution will become available with Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) in 2018.
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| 6. |
- Correa, Yubexi, et al.
(författare)
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High-Density Lipoprotein function is modulated by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in a lipid-type dependent manner
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. - : Elsevier. - 0021-9797 .- 1095-7103. ; 645, s. 627-638
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is a close relationship between the SARS-CoV-2 virus and lipoproteins, in particular high-density lipoprotein (HDL). The severity of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is inversely correlated with HDL plasma levels. It is known that the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein binds the HDL particle, probably depleting it of lipids and altering HDL function. Based on neutron reflectometry (NR) and the ability of HDL to efflux cholesterol from macrophages, we confirm these observations and further identify the preference of the S protein for specific lipids and the consequent effects on HDL function on lipid exchange ability. Moreover, the effect of the S protein on HDL function differs depending on the individuals lipid serum profile. Contrasting trends were observed for individuals presenting low triglycerides/high cholesterol serum levels (LTHC) compared to high triglycerides/high cholesterol (HTHC) or low triglycerides/low cholesterol serum levels (LTLC). Collectively, these results suggest that the S protein interacts with the HDL particle and, depending on the lipid profile of the infected individual, it impairs its function during COVID-19 infection, causing an imbalance in lipid metabolism.
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| 7. |
- Diego, Jose M., et al.
(författare)
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JWST's PEARLS : Mothra, a new kaiju star at z=2.091 extremely magnified by MACS0416, and implications for dark matter models
- 2023
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 679
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the discovery of Mothra, an extremely magnified monster star, likely a binary system of two supergiant stars, in one of the strongly lensed galaxies behind the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.1-2403. Mothra is in a galaxy with spectroscopic redshift z = 2.091 in a portion of the galaxy that is parsecs away from the cluster caustic. The binary star is observed only on the side of the critical curve with negative parity but has been detectable for at least eight years, implying the presence of a small lensing perturber. Microlenses alone cannot explain the earlier observations of this object made with the Hubble Space Telescope. A larger perturber with a mass of at least 10(4 )M(circle dot) offers a more satisfactory explanation. Based on the lack of perturbation on other nearby sources in the same arc, the maximum mass of the perturber is 2.5 x 10(6) M-circle dot, making this the smallest substructure constrained by lensing at z > 0.3. The existence of this millilens is fully consistent with expectations from standard cold dark matter cosmology. On the other hand, the existence of such a small substructure in a cluster environment has implications for other dark matter models. In particular, warm dark matter models with particle masses below 8.7 keV are excluded by our observations. Similarly, axion dark matter models are consistent with the observations only if the axion mass is in the range 0.5 x 10(-22) eV < m(a )< 5 x 10(-22) eV.
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| 8. |
- Goldschmidt, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Scalability and Robustness of Time-Series Databases for Cloud-Native Monitoring of Industrial Processes
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings 2014 IEEE Seventh International Conference on Cloud Computing CLOUD 2014. - Alaska, United States. ; , s. 602-609
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Today’s industrial control systems store large amounts of monitored sensor data in order to optimize industrial processes. In the last decades, architects have designed such systems mainly under the assumption that they operate in closed, plant-side IT infrastructures without horizontal scalability. Cloud technologies could be used in this context to save local IT costs and enable higher scalability, but their maturity for industrial applications with high requirements for responsiveness and robustness is not yet well understood. We propose a conceptual architecture as a basis to designing cloud-native monitoring systems. As a first step we benchmarked three open source timeseries databases (OpenTSDB, KairosDB and Databus) on cloud infrastructures with up to 36 nodes with workloads from realistic industrial applications. We found that at least KairosDB fulfills our initial hypotheses concerning scalability and reliability.
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| 9. |
- Hatvani, Leo, et al.
(författare)
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An integrated tool for trade-off analysis of quality-of-service attributes
- 2010
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Ingår i: Proceedings of The 2nd International Workshop on the Quality of Service-Oriented Software Systems. - New York : ACM. - 9781450302395 ; , s. Art no. 2-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we present a tool for performing trade-off analysis of Quality-of-Service attributes of design solutions resulted from architectural, behavioral, or deployment changes in service-oriented systems. The tool allows for comparing the performance, reliability, and maintainability of such solutions, in an attempt to compute the optimal one with respect to the weighted sum of the considered quality attributes. Our tool uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process for computing trade-offs, and is integrated into the Quality Impact Prediction for Evolving Service-Oriented Software IDE.
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| 10. |
- Jansen, Anton, 1996-
(författare)
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Constant-pH Molecular Dynamics and Applications
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Although it has been long known that pH plays an important role in biology, it was only in the 20th century that people first realized that pH can greatly affect the structure and function of proteins on a molecular level. A commonly encountered problem when studying the effect of pH in proteins is that experimental techniques such as X-ray crystallography and cryogenic electron microscopy often lack the resolution required to determine the protonation states of titratable residues. Even with neutron diffraction methods, which can theoretically resolve protons, the electrostatic environment in a crystal or grid does not necessarily correspond to the cellular environment. Where experimental methods fall short, in silico approaches such as molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can provide additional insight. However, pH is not typically captured dynamically in classical MD simulations. Rather, the protonation states of titratable sites such as aspartic and glutamic acid are usually set at the start of the simulation and remain constant throughout the run. Despite significant efforts in theMDfield to model protonation more realistically, a comprehensive and efficient constant-pH implementation in GROMACS has so far been lacking.The aim of this work was to implement a continuous constant-pH method in GROMACS, to improve the ease of use of such methodology for the GROMACS user community, and to apply such methodology to study pH-gated ion channels. To this end, the work presented in this thesis can be divided into three parts. First, in papers I and II, I discuss the implementation of a λ-dynamics-based constant-pH algorithm in GROMACS, including several important methodological aspects. Next, in paper III, I present phbuilder, a Python-based simulation builder tool that automates the often complicated, tedious, and error-prone set up process of constant-pH simulations in GROMACS. Finally, in papers IV and V, I investigate how the constant-pH method can be used to better understand the pH gating mechanism in the bacterial GLIC and sTeLIC ligand-gated ion channels.The work presented in this thesis has contributed to both the methodological and application sides in the field of MD. I have helped to develop and implement a λ-dynamics based constant-pH method in GROMACS, and I have made such methodology available to the broader GROMACS user community by providing a tool that automates its setup process. On the application side, I have demonstrated the feasibility of the constant-pH implementation for studying large and complex protein systems, such as ion channels, and furthered our understanding of pH-mediated gating in GLIC and sTeLIC.
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