Computational Chemistry in Asia

We describe a package of some IBM PC programs that may find application in computer-aided molecular design. PCGEOM constructs and visualizes molecular models from bond lengths, bond angles, and dihedral angles, from Cartesian coordinates, or from stored fragments. It may prepare output files to be used as input for other programs, like CNDOB (conventional CNDO/2) or PCMEP using the bond increment (BI) method for the calculation of molecular electrostatic potentials. PCPROT is in preparation and will use Protein Data Bank coordinates to visualize and manipulate protein molecular models. Starting from these, it will calculate electrostatic potentials using the BI method and/or monopoles adjusted to reproduce ab initio values for amino acid residues. FSCF is based on a CNDO-type approximation and uses strictly localized molecular orbitals in order to partition large molecules into a central fragment, a polarizable region, and a fully transferable environment. The partition allows one to handle relatively large systems with up to 200 atoms. To illustrate applications, we present estimation of relative inhibitory potencies of a series of substituted triazines on chicken liver dihydrofolate reductase.