Force field dependence of riboswitch dynamics

Riboswitches are noncoding regulatory elements that control gene expression in response to the presence of metabolites, which bind to the aptamer domain. Metabolite binding appears to occur through a combination of conformational selection and induced fit mechanism. This demands to characterize the structural dynamics of the apo state of aptamer domains. In principle, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can give insights at the atomistic level into the dynamics of the aptamer domain. However, it is unclear to what extent contemporary force fields can bias such insights. Here, we show that the Amber force field ff99 yields the best agreement with detailed experimental observations on differences in the structural dynamics of wild type and mutant aptamer domains of the guanine-sensing riboswitch (Gsw), including a pronounced influence of Mg2+. In contrast, applying ff99 with parmbsc0 and parmχOL modifications (denoted ff10) results in strongly damped motions and overly stable tertiary loop-loop interactions. These results are based on 58 MD simulations with an aggregate simulation time>11 μs, careful modeling of Mg2+ ions, and thorough statistical testing. Our results suggest that the moderate stabilization of the χ-anti region in ff10 can have an unwanted damping effect on functionally relevant structural dynamics of marginally stable RNA systems. This suggestion is supported by crystal structure analyses of Gsw aptamer domains that reveal χ torsions with high-anti values in the most mobile regions. We expect that future RNA force field development will benefit from considering marginally stable RNA systems and optimization toward good representations of dynamics in addition to structural characteristics.