FLEXBIN performs quaternary structure modeling of a dimeric complex formed by flexible subunits
with known atomic structures of multiple conformations against the SAXS data set.
A simulated annealing protocol is employed to construct an interconnected ensemble
of subunits without steric clashes, while minimizing the discrepancy between the
experimental scattering data and the curves calculated from the appropriate subunits
assemblies. At each step one of the conformers for both subunits is picked.
The theoretical scattering patterns I(s) are expressed in terms of spherical
harmonics from the partial scattering amplitudes of the subunits Alm(s)
in their given positions and orientations. The subunit's amplitudes in arbitrary
arrangement depend on its scattering amplitudes of the given conformer in the reference position
and on three rotational and three translational parameters.
Residue of the first subunit (Cα atom ordial number)
at the interface with the second subunit. If zero, no further input is required.
2nd subunit contacting residue
0
Residue of the second subunit (Cα atom ordial number)
at the interface with the first subunit. This question is only asked if the
first subunit residue is not 0
Contacting distance
0.0
Maximal distance between the residues of the first and the second subunits
This question is only asked if the first subunit residue is not 0
On runtime, two lines of output will be generated for each
SA temperature step:
j: 1 T: 10.0 Suc: 1000 Eva: 2164 CPU: 125. F: 1.879 Pen: 0.1190
The best chi^2 values: 1.8
The fields can be interpreted as follows, top-left to bottom-right:
Field
Description
j
Step number. Starts at 1, increases monotonically.
T
Temperature measure, starts at an arbitrary high value, decreases
each step by the annealing schedule
factor.
Suc
Number of successful mutations in this temperature step.
Limited by the minimum and
maximum number of successes.
The number of successes should slowly decrease, the first couple of
steps should be terminated by the maximum
number of successes criterion. If instead the
maximum number of iterations are done, or the number
of successes drops suddenly by a large amount, the system should
probably be cooled more slowly.
Eva
Accumulated number of function evaluations.
CPU
Elapsed wall-clock time since the annealing procedure was started.
F
The best target function value obtained so far.
Pen
Accumulated penalty value of the best target function.
The best chi^2 values
The χ2
value of the best target function is given.
FLEXBIN uses the SAXS experimental data files (*.dat) in ascii format
containing 3 columns: (1) experimental scattering vector, (2) experimental intensity
and (3) experimental errors; The list of the pdb files has the following format:
After each simulated annealing step, FLEXBIN creates a set of output files,
each filename starts with a customizable prefix
that gets an extension appended. If a prefix has been used before, existing
files will be overwritten without further note.
The current model of the binary complex. The REMARK section of
the file contains information about the application used and
about the parameters of the model, e.g. penalties and χ.
Fit of the scattering curve computed from the complex (subcomplex)
versus the corresponding experimental data. Columns in the output file
are: 's', 'Iexp' 'Errexp' and 'Icomp'.