Atomistic Model for Simulations of the Sedative Hypnotic Drug 2,2,2-Trichloroethanol

2,2,2-Trichloroethanol (TCE) is the active form of the sedative hypnotic drug chloral hydrate, one of the oldest sleep medications in the market. Understanding of TCE's action mechanisms to its many targets, particularly within the ion channel family, could benefit from the state-of-the-art computational molecular studies. In this direction, we employed de novo modeling aided by the force field toolkit to develop CHARMM36-compatible TCE parameters. The classical potential energy function was calibrated targeting molecular conformations, local interactions with water molecules, and liquid bulk properties. Reference data comes from both tabulated thermodynamic properties and ab initio calculations at the MP2 level. TCE solvation free energy calculations in water and oil reproduce a lipophilic, yet nonhydrophobic, behavior. Indeed, the potential mean force profile for TCE partition through the phospholipid bilayer reveals the sedative's preference for the interfacial region. The calculated partition coefficient also matches experimental measures. Further validation of the proposed parameters is supported by the model's ability to recapitulate quenching experiments demonstrating TCE binding to bovine serum albumin.