Observation of the A-DNA to B-DNA transition during unrestrained molecular dynamics in aqueous solution

A large challenge in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of proteins and nucleic acids is to find the correct "experimental" geometry when a simulation is started a significant distance away from it. In this study, we have carried out four unrestrained approximately 1 ns length MD trajectories in aqueous solution on the DNA duplex d(CCAACGTTGG)2, two beginning in a canonical A-DNA structure and two beginning in a canonical B-DNA structure. As judged by root-mean-squared coordinate deviations, average structures computed from all four of the trajectories converge to within approximately 0.8 to 1.6 angstroms (all atoms) of each other, which is 1.3 to 1.7 angstroms (all atoms of the central six residues from each strand) and 3.1 to 3.6 angstroms (all atoms) away from the B-DNA-like X-ray structure reported for this sequence. To our knowledge, this is the first example of multiple nanosecond molecular dynamics trajectories with full representation of DNA charges, solvent and long range electrostatics that demonstrate both internal consistency (two different starting structures and four different trajectories lead to a consistent average structure) and considerable agreement with the X-ray crystal structure of this sequence and NMR data on duplex DNA in aqueous solution. This internal consistency of structure for a given sequence suggests that one can now begin to realistically examine sequence-dependent structural effects in DNA duplexes using molecular dynamics.