Automatic discovery of metastable states for the construction of Markov models of macromolecular conformational dynamics

John D. Chodera*, Nina Singhal*, William C. Swope, Jed W. Pitera, Vijay S. Pande, and Ken A. Dill.
J. Chem. Phys. 126:155101, 2007. [DOI] [PDF]

Proposing one of the first automated algorithms for discovering kinetically metastable states of biomolecules from molecular simulations, this paper shows how many biomolecules can possess numerous distinct long-lived conformational states even though the the equilibrium populations of these states may too small for standard structural biology techniques to detect.