Synthesis, structural characterization, and molecular docking study of new phthalhydrazide-coumarin hybrids

The design, implementation, and capabilities of an extensible visualization system, UCSF Chimera, are discussed. Chimera is segmented into a core that provides basic services and visualization, and extensions that provide most higher level functionality. This architecture ensures that the extension mechanism satisfies the demands of outside developers who wish to incorporate new features. Two unusual extensions are presented: Multiscale, which adds the ability to visualize large-scale molecular assemblies such as viral coats, and Collaboratory, which allows researchers to share a Chimera session interactively despite being at separate locales. Other extensions include Multalign Viewer, for showing multiple sequence alignments and associated structures; ViewDock, for screening docked ligand orientations; Movie, for replaying molecular dynamics trajectories; and Volume Viewer, for display and analysis of volumetric data. A discussion of the usage of Chimera in real-world situations is given, along with anticipated future directions. Chimera includes full user documentation, is free to academic and nonprofit users, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Apple Mac OS X, SGI IRIX, and HP Tru64 Unix from http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/. Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Continuum solvation models are appealing because of the simplified yet accurate description they provide of the solvent effect on a solute, described either by quantum mechanical or classical methods. The polarizable continuum model (PCM) family of solvation models is among the most widely used, although their application has been hampered by discontinuities and singularities arising from the discretization of the integral equations at the solute-solvent interface. In this contribution we introduce a continuous surface charge (CSC) approach that leads to a smooth and robust formalism for the PCM models. We start from the scheme proposed over ten years ago by York and Karplus and we generalize it in various ways, including the extension to analytic second derivatives with respect to atomic positions. We propose an optimal discrete representation of the integral operators required for the determination of the apparent surface charge. We achieve a clear separation between "model" and "cavity" which, together with simple generalizations of modern integral codes, is all that is required for an extensible and efficient implementation of the PCM models. Following this approach we are now able to introduce solvent effects on energies, structures, and vibrational frequencies (analytical first and second derivatives with respect to atomic coordinates), magnetic properties (derivatives with respect of magnetic field using GIAOs), and in the calculation more complex properties like frequency-dependent Raman activities, vibrational circular dichroism, and Raman optical activity.