TagDock: An Efficient Rigid Body Docking Algorithm for Oligomeric Protein Complex Model Construction and Experiment Planning

Abstract

We report here new computational tools and strategies to efficiently generate three-dimensional models for oligomeric biomolecular complexes in cases where there is limited experimental restraint data to guide the docking calculations. Our computational tools are designed to rapidly and exhaustively enumerate all geometrically possible docking poses for an oligomeric complex, rather than generate detailed, atomic-resolution models. Experimental data, such as interatomic distance measurements, are then used to select and refine docking poses that are consistent with the experimental restraints. Our computational toolkit is designed for use with sparse data sets to generate intermediate-resolution docking models, and utilizes distance difference matrix analysis to identify further restraint measurements that will provide maximum additional structural refinement. Thus, these tools can be used to help plan optimal residue positions for probe incorporation in labor-intensive biophysical experiments such as chemical cross-linking, electron paramagnetic resonance, or Förster resonance energy transfer spectroscopy studies. We present benchmark results for docking the collection of all 176 heterodimer protein complexes from the ZDOCK database, as well as a protein homodimer with recently collected experimental distance restraints, to illustrate the toolkit's capabilities and performance, and to demonstrate how distance difference matrix analysis can automatically identify and prioritize additional restraint measurements that allow us to rapidly optimize docking poses.