Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40179291›Full record

ArticleJournal of chemical theory and computation2025

Ion-Induced Dipole Interactions Matter in Metadynamics Simulation of Transition Metal Ion Transporters.

Majid Jafari, Luca Sagresti, Jian Hu, Kenneth M Merz

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of chemical theory and computation, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Majid JafariDepartment of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-5233-6882
Luca SagrestiScuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa, Italy and CSGI.
Jian HuDepartment of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-6657-9826
Kenneth M MerzDepartment of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-9139-5893

Funding

Modeling Transition Metal Ion Binding to ProteinsR01GM130641 · NIGMS · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · PI KENNETH M. MERZ · 2019 to 2026
$2.5M
Transport, substrate specificity and regulation mechanisms of the ZIP transition metal transportersR35GM140931 · NIGMS · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · PI HU, JIAN · 2021 to 2025
$1.7M
NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM130641NIGMS NIH HHS R35 GM140931
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Metal transporters play crucial roles in the homeostasis and detoxification of beneficial and toxic metals in the human body. Due to experimental limitations in studying some metal transporters, numerous simulation studies have been conducted to understand the mechanisms of metal transport. However, studying the transport of divalent metal ions across the plasma membrane by metal transporters has been challenging with traditional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The metal ions often become trapped inside the transporter due to encountering high energy barriers during the transport process. In this study, we combined a recently developed metadynamics setup, known as well-tempered (WT) volume-based MTD, with the 12-6-4 Lennard-Jones (LJ) model representing transition metal-His/Asp/Glu side chain interactions. We used this approach to investigate the mechanism of action of a Zrt-/Irt-like protein (ZIP) transporter and compared the results with simulations using standard 12-6 LJ parameters for the transition metal-His/Asp/Glu side chain interactions. Our results show that the 12-6-4 LJ model for transition metal-His/Asp/Glu side chain interactions samples conformational space more broadly than the standard 12-6 LJ model for the same interactions in MTD simulations, facilitating the sampling of states that are hard to reach with the standard 12-6 model within the same time scale. This is even more remarkable given the fact that the model is dominated by 12-6 LJ interactions for the majority of the system, while the transition metal-His/Asp/Glu side chain interactions are the only interactions using the 12-6-4 LJ model. Hence, a small subset of interactions significantly modifies the states sampled by the entire protein leading to a more frequent observation of the transport of the transition metal ion. Overall, using 12-6-4 LJ to model the transition metal-His/Asp/Glu side chain interactions increases the potential for discovering additional metastable states by enabling metal ions to traverse more freely along the defined transport pathways.

Indexed as

Cation Transport ProteinsMetalsMolecular Dynamics SimulationTransition ElementsHumansIonsCation Transport ProteinsIonsMetalsTransition Elements

Identifiers

PMID40179291
PMCPMC12020355

What Socratic holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.