@article{DonatiFackeldeyWeber2023, author = {Donati, Luca and Fackeldey, Konstantin and Weber, Marcus}, title = {Augmented ant colony algorithm for virtual drug discovery}, series = {Journal of Mathematical Chemistry}, volume = {62}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Chemistry}, doi = {10.1007/s10910-023-01549-6}, pages = {367 -- 385}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Docking is a fundamental problem in computational biology and drug discovery that seeks to predict a ligand's binding mode and affinity to a target protein. However, the large search space size and the complexity of the underlying physical interactions make docking a challenging task. Here, we review a docking method, based on the ant colony optimization algorithm, that ranks a set of candidate ligands by solving a minimization problem for each ligand individually. In addition, we propose an augmented version that takes into account all energy functions collectively, allowing only one minimization problem to be solved. The results show that our modification outperforms in accuracy and efficiency.}, language = {en} } @article{SikorskiNiknejadWeberetal., author = {Sikorski, Alexander and Niknejad, Amir and Weber, Marcus and Donati, Luca}, title = {Tensor-SqRA: Modeling the transition rates of interacting molecular systems in terms of potential energies}, series = {Journal of Chemical Physics}, volume = {160}, journal = {Journal of Chemical Physics}, doi = {10.1063/5.0187792}, pages = {104112}, abstract = {Estimating the rate of rare conformational changes in molecular systems is one of the goals of molecular dynamics simulations. In the past few decades, a lot of progress has been done in data-based approaches toward this problem. In contrast, model-based methods, such as the Square Root Approximation (SqRA), directly derive these quantities from the potential energy functions. In this article, we demonstrate how the SqRA formalism naturally blends with the tensor structure obtained by coupling multiple systems, resulting in the tensor-based Square Root Approximation (tSqRA). It enables efficient treatment of high-dimensional systems using the SqRA and provides an algebraic expression of the impact of coupling energies between molecular subsystems. Based on the tSqRA, we also develop the projected rate estimation, a hybrid data-model-based algorithm that efficiently estimates the slowest rates for coupled systems. In addition, we investigate the possibility of integrating low-rank approximations within this framework to maximize the potential of the tSqRA.}, language = {en} } @article{DonatiSchuetteWeber, author = {Donati, Luca and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof and Weber, Marcus}, title = {The Kramers turnover in terms of a macro-state projection on phase space}, series = {Molecular Physics}, journal = {Molecular Physics}, number = {Ciccotti Special Issue (by invitation only)}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, doi = {10.1080/00268976.2024.2356748}, pages = {e2356748}, abstract = {We have investigated how Langevin dynamics is affected by the friction coefficient using the novel algorithm ISOKANN, which combines the transfer operator approach with modern machine learning techniques. ISOKANN describes the dynamics in terms of an invariant subspace projection of the Koopman operator defined in the entire state space, avoiding approximations due to dimensionality reduction and discretization. Our results are consistent with the Kramers turnover and show that in the low and moderate friction regimes, metastable macro-states and transition rates are defined in phase space, not only in position space.}, language = {en} } @article{DonatiWeber, author = {Donati, Luca and Weber, Marcus}, title = {Efficient Estimation of Transition Rates as Functions of pH}, series = {Proceedings in Applied Mathematics \& Mechanics}, volume = {23}, journal = {Proceedings in Applied Mathematics \& Mechanics}, doi = {10.1002/pamm.202300264}, abstract = {Extracting the kinetic properties of a system whose dynamics depend on the pH of the environment with which it exchanges energy and atoms requires sampling the Grand Canonical Ensemble. As an alternative, we present a novel strategy that requires simulating only the most recurrent Canonical Ensembles that compose the Grand Canonical Ensemble. The simulations are used to estimate the Gran Canonical distribution for a specific pH value by reweighting and to construct the transition rate matrix by discretizing the Fokker-Planck equation by Square Root Approximation and robust Perron Cluster Cluster Analysis. As an application, we have studied the tripeptide Ala-Asp-Ala.}, language = {en} } @article{DonatiWeberKeller, author = {Donati, Luca and Weber, Marcus and Keller, Bettina G.}, title = {A review of Girsanov Reweighting and of Square Root Approximation for building molecular Markov State Models}, series = {Journal of Mathematical Physics}, volume = {63}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Physics}, number = {12}, publisher = {AIP Publishing}, doi = {10.1063/5.0127227}, pages = {123306-1 -- 123306-21}, abstract = {Dynamical reweighting methods permit to estimate kinetic observables of a stochastic process governed by a target potential U(x) from trajectories that have been generated at a different potential V(x). In this article, we present Girsanov reweighting and Square Root Approximation (SqRA): the first method reweights path probabilities exploiting the Girsanov theorem and can be applied to Markov State Models (MSMs) to reweight transition probabilities; the second method was originally developed to discretize the Fokker-Planck operator into a transition rate matrix, but here we implement it into a reweighting scheme for transition rates. We begin by reviewing the theoretical background of the methods, then present two applications relevant to Molecular Dynamics (MD), highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.}, language = {en} } @article{DonatiWeber, author = {Donati, Luca and Weber, Marcus}, title = {Assessing transition rates as functions of environmental variables}, series = {The Journal of Chemical Physics}, volume = {157}, journal = {The Journal of Chemical Physics}, number = {22}, publisher = {AIP Publishing}, doi = {10.1063/5.0109555}, pages = {224103-1 -- 224103-14}, abstract = {We present a method to estimate the transition rates of molecular systems under different environmental conditions which cause the formation or the breaking of bonds and require the sampling of the Grand Canonical Ensemble. For this purpose, we model the molecular system in terms of probable "scenarios", governed by different potential energy functions, which are separately sampled by classical MD simulations. Reweighting the canonical distribution of each scenario according to specific environmental variables, we estimate the grand canonical distribution, then we use the Square Root Approximation (SqRA) method to discretize the Fokker-Planck operator into a rate matrix and the robust Perron Cluster Cluster Analysis (PCCA+) method to coarse-grain the kinetic model. This permits to efficiently estimate the transition rates of conformational states as functions of environmental variables, for example, the local pH at a cell membrane. In this work we formalize the theoretical framework of the procedure and we present a numerical experiment comparing the results with those provided by a constant-pH method based on non-equilibrium Molecular Dynamics Monte Carlo simulations. The method is relevant for the development of new drug design strategies which take into account how the cellular environment influences biochemical processes.}, language = {en} } @article{DonatiWeberKeller, author = {Donati, Luca and Weber, Marcus and Keller, Bettina G.}, title = {Markov models from the square root approximation of the Fokker-Planck equation: calculating the grid-dependent flux}, series = {Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter}, volume = {33}, journal = {Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter}, number = {11}, doi = {10.1088/1361-648X/abd5f7}, pages = {115902}, abstract = {Molecular dynamics (MD) are extremely complex, yet understanding the slow components of their dynamics is essential to understanding their macroscopic properties. To achieve this, one models the MD as a stochastic process and analyses the dominant eigenfunctions of the associated Fokker-Planck operator, or of closely related transfer operators. So far, the calculation of the discretized operators requires extensive MD simulations. The square-root approximation of the Fokker-Planck equation is a method to calculate transition rates as a ratio of the Boltzmann densities of neighboring grid cells times a flux, and can in principle be calculated without a simulation. In a previous work we still used MD simulations to determine the flux. Here, we propose several methods to calculate the exact or approximate flux for various grid types, and thus estimate the rate matrix without a simulation. Using model potentials we test computational efficiency of the methods, and the accuracy with which they reproduce the dominant eigenfunctions and eigenvalues. For these model potentials, rate matrices with up to \$\mathcal{O}\left(1{0}^{6}\right)\$ states can be obtained within seconds on a single high-performance compute server if regular grids are used.}, language = {en} } @article{DonatiHeidaKelleretal., author = {Donati, Luca and Heida, Martin and Keller, Bettina G. and Weber, Marcus}, title = {Estimation of the infinitesimal generator by square-root approximation}, series = {J. Phys.: Condens. Matter}, volume = {30}, journal = {J. Phys.: Condens. Matter}, number = {42}, doi = {10.1088/1361-648X/aadfc8}, pages = {425201 -- 425201}, abstract = {In recent years, for the analysis of molecular processes, the estimation of time-scales and transition rates has become fundamental. Estimating the transition rates between molecular conformations is—from a mathematical point of view—an invariant subspace projection problem. We present a method to project the infinitesimal generator acting on function space to a low-dimensional rate matrix. This projection can be performed in two steps. First, we discretize the conformational space in a Voronoi tessellation, then the transition rates between adjacent cells is approximated by the geometric average of the Boltzmann weights of the Voronoi cells. This method demonstrates that there is a direct relation between the potential energy surface of molecular structures and the transition rates of conformational changes. We will show also that this approximation is correct and converges to the generator of the Smoluchowski equation in the limit of infinitely small Voronoi cells. We present results for a two dimensional diffusion process and alanine dipeptide as a high-dimensional system.}, language = {en} } @article{QuerDonatiKelleretal., author = {Quer, Jannes and Donati, Luca and Keller, Bettina and Weber, Marcus}, title = {An automatic adaptive importance sampling algorithm for molecular dynamics in reaction coordinates}, series = {SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing}, volume = {40}, journal = {SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1137/17m1124772}, pages = {A653 -- A670}, abstract = {In this article we propose an adaptive importance sampling scheme for dynamical quantities of high dimensional complex systems which are metastable. The main idea of this article is to combine a method coming from Molecular Dynamics Simulation, Metadynamics, with a theorem from stochastic analysis, Girsanov's theorem. The proposed algorithm has two advantages compared to a standard estimator of dynamic quantities: firstly, it is possible to produce estimators with a lower variance and, secondly, we can speed up the sampling. One of the main problems for building importance sampling schemes for metastable systems is to find the metastable region in order to manipulate the potential accordingly. Our method circumvents this problem by using an assimilated version of the Metadynamics algorithm and thus creates a non-equilibrium dynamics which is used to sample the equilibrium quantities.}, language = {en} } @misc{QuerDonatiKelleretal., author = {Quer, Jannes and Donati, Luca and Keller, Bettina and Weber, Marcus}, title = {An automatic adaptive importance sampling algorithm for molecular dynamics in reaction coordinates}, issn = {1438-0064}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-62075}, abstract = {In this article we propose an adaptive importance sampling scheme for dynamical quantities of high dimensional complex systems which are metastable. The main idea of this article is to combine a method coming from Molecular Dynamics Simulation, Metadynamics, with a theorem from stochastic analysis, Girsanov's theorem. The proposed algorithm has two advantages compared to a standard estimator of dynamic quantities: firstly, it is possible to produce estimators with a lower variance and, secondly, we can speed up the sampling. One of the main problems for building importance sampling schemes for metastable systems is to find the metastable region in order to manipulate the potential accordingly. Our method circumvents this problem by using an assimilated version of the Metadynamics algorithm and thus creates a non-equilibrium dynamics which is used to sample the equilibrium quantities.}, language = {en} }