Coarse-grained model of proteins incorporating atomistic detail of the active site

We present a novel approach to explore the conformational space of globular proteins near their native state. It combines the advantages of coarse-grained models with those of all-atoms simulations, required to treat molecular recognition processes. The comparison between calculated structural properties with those obtained with all-atoms molecular dynamics simulations establishes the accuracy of the model. Our method has the potential to be extended to molecular recognition processes in systems whose characteristic size and time scale prevent an analysis based on all-atoms molecular dynamics.