No Arabic abstract
Non-coding RNA molecules fold into precise base pairing patterns to carry out critical roles in genetic regulation and protein synthesis. We show here that coupling systematic mutagenesis with high-throughput SHAPE chemical mapping enables accurate base pair inference of domains from ribosomal RNA, ribozymes, and riboswitches. For a six-RNA benchmark that challenged prior chemical/computational methods, this mutate-and-map strategy gives secondary structures in agreement with crystallographic data (2 % error rates), including a blind test on a double-glycine riboswitch. Through modeling of partially ordered RNA states, the method enables the first test of an interdomain helix-swap hypothesis for ligand-binding cooperativity in a glycine riboswitch. Finally, the mutate-and-map data report on tertiary contacts within non-coding RNAs; coupled with the Rosetta/FARFAR algorithm, these data give nucleotide-resolution three-dimensional models (5.7 {AA} helix RMSD) of an adenine riboswitch. These results highlight the promise of a two-dimensional chemical strategy for inferring the secondary and tertiary structures that underlie non-coding RNA behavior.
In this paper, we study a two-lane totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) coupled with random attachment and detachment of particles (Langmuir kinetics) in both lanes under open boundary conditions. Our model can describe the directed motion of molecular motors, attachment and detachment of motors, and free inter-lane transition of motors between filaments. In this paper, we focus on some finite-size effects of the system because normally the sizes of most real systems are finite and small (e.g., size $leq 10,000$). A special finite-size effect of the two-lane system has been observed, which is that the density wall moves left first and then move towards the right with the increase of the lane-changing rate. We called it the jumping effect. We find that increasing attachment and detachment rates will weaken the jumping effect. We also confirmed that when the size of the two-lane system is large enough, the jumping effect disappears, and the two-lane system has a similar density profile to a single-lane TASEP coupled with Langmuir kinetics. Increasing lane-changing rates has little effect on density and current after the density reaches maximum. Also, lane-changing rate has no effect on density profiles of a two-lane TASEP coupled with Langmuir kinetics at a large attachment/detachment rate and/or a large system size. Mean-field approximation is presented and it agrees with our Monte Carlo simulations.
Population pharmacokinetic (PK) modeling methods can be statistically classified as either parametric or nonparametric (NP). Each classification can be divided into maximum likelihood (ML) or Bayesian (B) approaches. In this paper we discuss the nonparametric case using both maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches. We present two nonparametric methods for estimating the unknown joint population distribution of model parameter values in a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) dataset. The first method is the NP Adaptive Grid (NPAG). The second is the NP Bayesian (NPB) algorithm with a stick-breaking process to construct a Dirichlet prior. Our objective is to compare the performance of these two methods using a simulated PK/PD dataset. Our results showed excellent performance of NPAG and NPB in a realistically simulated PK study. This simulation allowed us to have benchmarks in the form of the true population parameters to compare with the estimates produced by the two methods, while incorporating challenges like unbalanced sample times and sample numbers as well as the ability to include the covariate of patient weight. We conclude that both NPML and NPB can be used in realistic PK/PD population analysis problems. The advantages of one versus the other are discussed in the paper. NPAG and NPB are implemented in R and freely available for download within the Pmetrics package from www.lapk.org.
The conformational kinetics of enzymes can be reliably revealed when they are governed by Markovian dynamics. Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are appropriate especially in the case of conformational states that are hardly distinguishable. However, the evolution of the conformational states of proteins mostly shows non-Markovian behavior, recognizable by non-monoexponential state dwell time histograms. The application of a Hidden Markov Model technique to a cyclic system demonstrating semi-Markovian dynamics is presented in this paper and the required extension of the model design is discussed. As standard ranking criteria of models cannot deal with these systems properly, a new approach is proposed considering the shape of the dwell time histograms. We observed the rotational kinetics of a single F1-ATPase alpha3beta3gamma sub-complex over six orders of magnitude of different ATP to ADP and Pi concentration ratios, and established a general model describing the kinetics for the entire range of concentrations. The HMM extension described here is applicable in general to the accurate analysis of protein dynamics.
This work introduces a number of algebraic topology approaches, such as multicomponent persistent homology, multi-level persistent homology and electrostatic persistence for the representation, characterization, and description of small molecules and biomolecular complexes. Multicomponent persistent homology retains critical chemical and biological information during the topological simplification of biomolecular geometric complexity. Multi-level persistent homology enables a tailored topological description of inter- and/or intra-molecular interactions of interest. Electrostatic persistence incorporates partial charge information into topological invariants. These topological methods are paired with Wasserstein distance to characterize similarities between molecules and are further integrated with a variety of machine learning algorithms, including k-nearest neighbors, ensemble of trees, and deep convolutional neural networks, to manifest their descriptive and predictive powers for chemical and biological problems. Extensive numerical experiments involving more than 4,000 protein-ligand complexes from the PDBBind database and near 100,000 ligands and decoys in the DUD database are performed to test respectively the scoring power and the virtual screening power of the proposed topological approaches. It is demonstrated that the present approaches outperform the modern machine learning based methods in protein-ligand binding affinity predictions and ligand-decoy discrimination.
Scaffold based drug discovery (SBDD) is a technique for drug discovery which pins chemical scaffolds as the framework of design. Scaffolds, or molecular frameworks, organize the design of compounds into local neighborhoods. We formalize scaffold based drug discovery into a network design. Utilizing docking data from SARS-CoV-2 virtual screening studies and JAK2 kinase assay data, we showcase how a scaffold based conception of chemical space is intuitive for design. Lastly, we highlight the utility of scaffold based networks for chemical space as a potential solution to the intractable enumeration problem of chemical space by working inductively on local neighborhoods.