The dynamics of Rhizomucor miehei lipase has been studied by molecular dyna
mics simulations at temperatures ranging from 200-500K. Simulations carried
out in periodic boundary conditions and using explicit water molecules wer
e performed for 400 ps at each temperature. Our results indicate that confo
rmational changes and internal motions in the protein are significantly inf
luenced by the temperature increase. With increasing temperature, the numbe
r of internal hydrogen bonds decreases, while surface accessibility, radius
of gyration and the number of residues in random coil conformation increas
e. In the temperature range studied, the motions can be described in a low
dimensional subspace, whose dimensionality decreases with increasing temper
ature. Approximately 80% of the total motion is described by the first (i)
80 eigenvectors at T=200K, (ii) 30 eigenvectors at T=300K and (iii) 10 eige
nvectors at T=400K. At high temperature, the alpha-helix covering the activ
e site in the native Rhizomucor miehei lipase, the helix at which end the a
ctive site is located, and in particular, the loop (Gly35-Lys50) show exten
sive flexibility.