Impact of Dispersion Coefficient on Simulations of Proteins and Organic Liquids

In the context of studies of proteins under crowding conditions, it was found that there is a tendency of simulated proteins to coagulate in a seemingly unphysical manner. This points to an imbalance in the protein-protein or protein-water interactions. One way to resolve this is to strengthen the protein-water Lennard-Jones interactions. However, it has also been suggested that dispersion interactions may have been systematically overestimated in force fields due to parameterization with a short cutoff. Here, we test this proposition by performing simulations of liquids and of proteins in solution with systematically reduced C₆ (dispersion constant in a 12-6 Lennard-Jones potential) and evaluate the properties. We find that simulations of liquids with either a dispersion correction or explicit long-range Lennard-Jones interactions need little or no correction to the dispersion constant to reproduce the experimental density. For simulations of proteins, a significant reduction in the dispersion constant is needed to reduce the coagulation, however. Because the protein- and liquid force fields share atom types, at least to some extent, another solution for the coagulation problem may be needed, either through including explicit polarization or through strengthening protein-water interactions.