Minimization of empirical energy functions in proteins including hydrophobic surface area effects

We present analytical expressions to calculate the gradient of the water-accessible surface area of proteins with respect to Cartesian coordinates and dihedral angles. A detailed mathematical analysis leads to corrected equations for the gradient calculation used previously in the ANAREA program. To study the hydrophobic effect of solvent-protein interactions, our expressions have been implemented to further improve the program package FANTOM. We used this version of FANTOM to minimize the ECEPPIS and the hydrophobic energy of tendamistat.