This function builds an elastic network model (ENM) based on all
heavy atoms of input pdb
, and performs subsequent normal mode
analysis (NMA) in various manners. By default, the ‘aaenm2’ force
field (defining of the spring constants between atoms) is used, which was
obtained by fitting to a local energy minimum of a crambin model
derived from the AMBER99SB force field. It employs a pair force constant
function which falls as r^-6, and specific force constants for
covalent and intra-residue atom pairs. See also load.enmff
for other force field options.
The outmodes
argument controls the type of output modes. There are
two standard types of output modes: ‘noh’ and ‘calpha’.
outmodes='noh'
invokes regular all-atom based ENM-NMA. When
outmodes='calpha'
, an effective Hessian with respect to all C-alpha
atoms will be first calculated using the same formula as in Hinsen et al.
NMA is then performed on this effective C-alpha based Hessian. In addition,
users can provide their own atom selection (see atom.select
)
as the value of outmodes
for customized output modes generation.
When reduced=TRUE
, only a selection of all heavy atoms is used
to build the ENM. More specifically, three to five atoms per residue
constitute the model. Here the N, CA, C atoms represent the protein
backbone, and zero to two selected side chain atoms represent the side chain
(selected based on side chain size and the distance to CA). This
coarse-grained ENM has significantly improved computational efficiency and
similar prediction accuracy with respect to the all-atom ENM.
When rtb=TRUE
, rotation-translation block (RTB) based approximate
modes will be calculated. In this method, each residue is assumed to be a
rigid body (or ‘block’) that has only rotational and translational
degrees of freedom. Intra-residue deformation is thus ignored.
(See Durand et al 1994 and Tama et al. 2000 for more details). N residues per
block is also supported, where N=1, 2, 3, etc. (See argument nmer
).
The RTB method has significantly improved computational efficiency and
similar prediction accuracy with respect to the all-atom ENM.
By default the function will diagonalize the mass-weighted Hessian matrix.
The resulting mode vectors are moreover scaled by the thermal fluctuation
amplitudes.