PACKMOL-GUI: An All-In-One VMD Interface for Efficient Molecular Packing.

J Chem Inf Model

Sino-Finland Joint AI Laboratory for Child Health of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou 310052, China.

Published: January 2025


Category Ranking

98%

Total Visits

921

Avg Visit Duration

2 minutes

Citations

20

Article Abstract

PACKMOL is a widely utilized molecular modeling tool within the computational chemistry community. However, its tremendous advantages have been impeded by the longstanding lack of a robust open-source graphical user interface (GUI) that integrates parameter settings with the visualization of molecular and geometric constraints. To address this limitation, we have developed PACKMOL-GUI, a VMD plugin that leverages the dynamic extensibility of the Tcl/Tk toolkit. This GUI enables the configuration of all PACKMOL parameters through an intuitive user panel, while also facilitating the visualization of molecular structures and geometric constraints, including cubes, boxes, and spheres, among others via the VMD software. The seamless interaction between the VMD and PACKMOL provides an intuitive and efficient all-in-one platform for the packing of complex molecular systems.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11776922PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.4c01639DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

visualization molecular
8
geometric constraints
8
molecular
5
packmol-gui all-in-one
4
vmd
4
all-in-one vmd
4
vmd interface
4
interface efficient
4
efficient molecular
4
molecular packing
4

Similar Publications

The global surge in the population of people 60 years and older, including that in China, challenges healthcare systems with rising age-related diseases. To address this demographic change, the Aging Biomarker Consortium (ABC) has launched the X-Age Project to develop a comprehensive aging evaluation system tailored to the Chinese population. Our goal is to identify robust biomarkers and construct composite aging clocks that capture biological age, defined as an individual's physiological and molecular state, across diverse Chinese cohorts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Durotaxis is a driver and potential therapeutic target in lung fibrosis and metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Nat Cell Biol

September 2025

Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Durotaxis, cell migration along stiffness gradients, is linked to embryonic development, tissue repair and disease. Despite solid in vitro evidence, its role in vivo remains largely speculative. Here we demonstrate that durotaxis actively drives disease progression in vivo in mouse models of lung fibrosis and metastatic pancreatic cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Breast cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease with diverse outcomes, and intra-tumoral heterogeneity plays a significant role in both diagnosis and treatment. Despite its importance, the spatial distribution of intra-tumoral heterogeneity is not fully elucidated. Spatial transcriptomics has emerged as a promising tool to study the molecular mechanisms behind many diseases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Structural basis of adenosine 2A receptor-balanced signaling activation relies on allosterically mediated structural dynamics.

Cell Chem Biol

September 2025

iHuman Institute, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China; School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China; Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Institute of Molecular Biology and Bio

Balanced or biased G protein and arrestin transmembrane signaling by the adenosine 2A receptor (AAR) is related to ligand-induced allosterically triggered variation of structural dynamics in the intracellular half of the transmembrane domain (TMD). F-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of a network of genetically introduced meta-trifluoromethyl-L-phenylalanine (mtfF) probes in the core of the TMD revealed signaling-related structure rearrangements leading from the extracellular orthosteric drug-binding site to the G protein and arrestin contacts on the intracellular surface. The key element in this structural basis of signal transfer is dynamic loss of structural order in the intracellular half of the TMD, as manifested by local polymorphisms and associated rate processes within the molecular architecture determined previously by X-ray crystallography.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF