Effects of generalized-Born implicit solvent models in NMR structure refinement

Rapid advances of computational power and method have made it practical to apply the time-consuming calculations with all-atom force fields and sophisticated potential energies into refining NMR structure. Added to the all-atom force field, generalized-Born implicit solvent model (GBIS) contributes substantially to improving the qualities of the resulting NMR structures. GBIS approximates the effects that explicit solvents bring about even with fairly reduced computational times. Although GBIS is employed in the final stage of NMR structure calculation with experimental restraints, the effects by GBIS on structures have been reported notable. However, the detailed effect is little studied in a quantitative way. In this study, we report GBIS refinements of ubiquitin and GB1 structures by six GBIS models of AMBER package with experimental distance and backbone torsion angle restraints. Of GBIS models tested, the calculations with igb=7 option generated the closest structures to those determined by X-ray both in ubiquitin and GB1 from the viewpoints of root-mean-square deviations. Those with igb=5 yielded the second best results. Our data suggest that the degrees of improvements vary under different GBIS models and the proper selection of GBIS model can lead to better results.