Computational Chemistry as a Key to Structural Bioinformatics

Computational chemistry is a discipline using computational methods for the calculation of molecular structure, properties, and reaction or for the simulation of molecular behavior. Relating and turning the complexity of data from genomics, high-throughput screening, combinatorial chemical synthesis, gene-expression investigations, pharmacogenomics, and proteomics into useful information and knowledge is the primary goal of bioinformatics. In particular, the structure-based molecular design is one of essential fields in bioinformatics and it can be called as structural bioinformatics. Therefore, the conformational analysis for proteins and peptides using the techniques of computational chemistry is expected to play a role in structural bioinformatics. There are two major computational methods for conformational analysis of proteins and peptides; one is the molecular orbital (MO) method and the other is the force field (or empirical potential function) method. The MO method can be classified into ab initio and semiempirical methods, which have been applied to relatively small and large molecules, respectively. However, the improvement in computer hardwares and softwares enables us to use the ab initio MO method for relatively larger biomolecules with up to v100 atoms or ∼800 basis functions. In order to show how computational chemistry can be used in structural bioinformatics, 1 will present on (1) cis-trans isomerization of proline dipeptide and its derivatives, (2) positional preference of proline in ${\alpha}$-helices, and (3) conformations and activities of Arg-Gly-Asp-containing tetrapeptides.