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Register a new userAutomatic parametrization of implicit solvent models for the blind prediction of solvation free energies
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In this work, a systematic protocol is proposed to automatically parametrize implicit solvent models with polar and nonpolar components. The proposed protocol utilizes the classical Poisson model or the Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KSDFT) based polarizable Poisson model for modeling polar solvation free energies. For the nonpolar component, either the standard model of surface area, molecular volume, and van der Waals interactions, or a model with atomic surface areas and molecular volume is employed. Based on the assumption that similar molecules have similar parametrizations, we develop scoring and ranking algorithms to classify solute molecules. Four sets of radius parameters are combined with four sets of charge force fields to arrive at a total of 16 different parametrizations for the Poisson model. A large database with 668 experimental data is utilized to validate the proposed protocol. The lowest leave-one-out root mean square (RMS) error for the database is 1.33k cal/mol. Additionally, five subsets of the database, i.e., SAMPL0-SAMPL4, are employed to further demonstrate that the proposed protocol offers some of the best solvation predictions. The optimal RMS errors are 0.93, 2.82, 1.90, 0.78, and 1.03 kcal/mol, respectively for SAMPL0, SAMPL1, SAMPL2, SAMPL3, and SAMPL4 test sets. These results are some of the best, to our best knowledge.
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Recent studies on the solvation of atomistic and nanoscale solutes indicate that a strong coupling exists between the hydrophobic, dispersion, and electrostatic contributions to the solvation free energy, a facet not considered in current implicit solvent models. We suggest a theoretical formalism which accounts for coupling by minimizing the Gibbs free energy of the solvent with respect to a solvent volume exclusion function. The resulting differential equation is similar to the Laplace-Young equation for the geometrical description of capillary interfaces, but is extended to microscopic scales by explicitly considering curvature corrections as well as dispersion and electrostatic contributions. Unlike existing implicit solvent approaches, the solvent accessible surface is an output of our model. The presented formalism is illustrated on spherically or cylindrically symmetrical systems of neutral or charged solutes on different length scales. The results are in agreement with computer simulations and, most importantly, demonstrate that our method captures the strong sensitivity of solvent expulsion and dewetting to the particular form of the solvent-solute interactions.
Continuum models to handle solvent and electrolyte effects in an effective way have a long tradition in quantum-chemistry simulations and are nowadays also being introduced in computational condensed-matter and materials simulations. A key ingredient of continuum models is the choice of the solute cavity, i.e. the definition of the sharp or smooth boundary between the regions of space occupied by the quantum-mechanical (QM) system and the continuum embedding environment. Although most of the solute-based approaches developed lead to models with comparable and high accuracy when applied to small organic molecules, they can introduce significant artifacts when complex systems are considered. As an example, condensed-matter simulations often deal with supports that present open structures. Similarly, unphysical pockets of continuum solvent may appear in systems featuring multiple molecular components. Here, we introduce a solvent-aware approach to eliminate the unphysical effects where regions of space smaller than the size of a single solvent molecule could still be filled with a continuum environment. We do this by defining a smoothly varying solute cavity that overcomes several of the limitations of straightforward solute-based definitions. This new approach applies to any smooth local definition of the continuum interface, being it based on the electronic density or the atomic positions of the QM system. It produces boundaries that are continuously differentiable with respect to the QM degrees of freedom, leading to accurate forces and/or Kohn-Sham potentials. Benchmarks on semiconductor substrates and on explicit water substrates confirm the flexibility and the accuracy of the approach and provide a general set of parameters for condensed-matter systems featuring open structures and/or explicit liquid components.
We demonstrate that with two small modifications, the popular dielectric continuum model is capable of predicting, with high accuracy, ion solvation thermodynamics in numerous polar solvents, and ion solvation free energies in water--co-solvent mixtures. The first modification involves perturbing the macroscopic dielectric-flux interface condition at the solute--solvent interface with a nonlinear function of the local electric field, giving what we have called a solvation-layer interface condition (SLIC). The second modification is a simple treatment of the microscopic interface potential (static potential). We show that the resulting model exhibits high accuracy without the need for fitting solute atom radii in a state-dependent fashion. Compared to experimental results in nine water--co-solvent mixtures, SLIC predicts transfer free energies to within 2.5 kJ/mol. The co-solvents include both protic and aprotic species, as well as biologically relevant denaturants such as urea and dimethylformamide. Furthermore, our results indicate that the interface potential is essential to reproduce entropies and heat capacities. The present work, together with previous studies of SLIC illustrating its accuracy for biomolecules in water, indicates it as a promising dielectric continuum model for accurate predictions of molecular solvation in a wide range of conditions.
Continuum solvation models enable efficient first principles calculations of chemical reactions in solution, but require extensive parametrization and fitting for each solvent and class of solute systems. Here, we examine the assumptions of continuum solvation models in detail and replace empirical terms with physical models in order to construct a minimally-empirical solvation model. Specifically, we derive solvent radii from the nonlocal dielectric response of the solvent from ab initio calculations, construct a closed-form and parameter-free weighted-density approximation for the free energy of the cavity formation, and employ a pair-potential approximation for the dispersion energy. We show that the resulting model with a single solvent-independent parameter: the electron density threshold ($n_c$), and a single solvent-dependent parameter: the dispersion scale factor ($s_6$), reproduces solvation energies of organic molecules in water, chloroform and carbon tetrachloride with RMS errors of 1.1, 0.6 and 0.5 kcal/mol respectively. We additionally show that fitting the solvent-dependent $s_6$ parameter to the solvation energy of a single non-polar molecule does not substantially increase these errors. Parametrization of this model for other solvents, therefore, requires minimal effort and is possible without extensive databases of experimental solvation free energies.
Developing accurate solvers for the Poisson Boltzmann (PB) model is the first step to make the PB model suitable for implicit solvent simulation. Reducing the grid size influence on the performance of the solver benefits to increasing the speed of solver and providing accurate electrostatics analysis for solvated molecules. In this work, we explore the accurate coarse grid PB solver based on the Greens function treatment of the singular charges, matched interface and boundary (MIB) method for treating the geometric singularities, and posterior electrostatic potential field extension for calculating the reaction field energy. We made our previous PB software, MIBPB, robust and provides almost grid size independent reaction field energy calculation. Large amount of the numerical tests verify the grid size independence merit of the MIBPB software. The advantage of MIBPB software directly make the acceleration of the PB solver from the numerical algorithm instead of utilization of advanced computer architectures. Furthermore, the presented MIBPB software is provided as a free online sever.
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