Long-Time Conformational Transitions of Alanine Dipeptide in Aqueous Solution: Continuous and Discrete-State Kinetic Models

We present an analysis of the thermodynamics, conformational dynamics, and kinetics of the solvated alanine dipeptide molecule. Solvation was treated in the framework of the OPLS/analytic generalized born with nonpolar interactions effective potential model. The effective free energy map was generated in a series of multiwindow umbrella sampling all-atom simulations using the weighted histogram analysis method. A Brownian dynamics approach was used to examine the room-temperature dynamics of the dipeptide. To emulate the realistic dynamics of conformational interconversions of the alanine dipeptide in water, the parameters that govern the time evolution of the reduced model were chosen to mimic the intermediate-time dynamics of a model which treats both the solute and the solvent explicitly. The characteristic time (mean first passage time) for the “fast” C7eq f RR transition was found to be around 249 ps in good agreement with the results of previously reported studies. From an ensemble of microsecond Brownian dynamics trajectories we were able to numerically estimate with high statistical precision the mean transition time for the “slow” transition RR f C7ax, which was found to be approximately 11 ns. Conformational kinetics of the dipeptide was further analyzed by introducing a discrete-state kinetic model consisting of four states (RR, â/C5/C7eq, RL, and C7ax) and 12 rate constants, which reproduces the long-time behavior of the Brownian dynamics simulations. The simulations described here complement and help to motivate single-molecule spectroscopic studies of alanine dipeptide and other peptides in aqueous solution. The close correspondence established between the continuous dynamics and a discrete-state kinetic model provides a possible route for studying the long-time kinetic behavior of larger polypeptides using detailed all-atom effective potentials.