Efficient and Accurate Modeling of Conformational Transitions in Proteins: The Case of c-Src Kinase

The theoretical computational modeling of large conformational transitions occurring in biomolecules still represents a challenge. Here, we present an accurate "in silico" description of the activation and deactivation mechanisms of human c-Src kinases, a fundamental process regulating several crucial cell functions. Our results clearly show that by applying an efficient and automated algorithm able to drive the molecular dynamics (MD) sampling along the pathway between the two c-Src conformational states - the active state and the inactive state - it is possible to accurately describe, at reduced computational costs, the molecular mechanism underlying these large conformational rearrangements. This procedure, combining the MD simulations with the sampling along the well-defined principal motions connecting the two conformational states, allows to provide a description well beyond the present computational limits, and it is easily applicable to different systems where the structures of both the initial and final states are known.