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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Nov 4.
Published in final edited form as: Mol Based Math Biol. 2013 Mar 21;1:10.2478/mlbmb-2013-0002. doi: 10.2478/mlbmb-2013-0002

Table 1.

Existing numerical methods and corresponding solvers for solving PBE

Program name charge Program available for download URL description
Finite Difference
PBSA (AMBER) Part of Amber package yes http://ambermd.org FD scheme offering numerous algorithms to deliver the solution; polarizable force field
DELPHI No charge for academia yes http://compbio.clemson.edu/DelPhi.php FD scheme with the Gauss-Seidel iteration technique
MEAD No charge yes http://hospital.stjude.org/mead_filerequest/request.html FD algorithm; includes modeling of a membrane as a low dielectric slab, possibly with a water-filled channel through a protein in the membrane
MIBPB No charge yes http://www.math.msu.edu/~wei/MIBPB High order discretization scheme close to the molecule-solvent interface; Dirichletto Neumann mapping method
PBEQ Part of Charmm package yes http://www.charmmgui.org/?doc=input/pbeqsolver Calculates electrostatic potential and solvation energy, in both aqueous solvent and membrane environments.
UHBD No charge yes http://proiects.hits.org/mcm/projects/afwb2002/uhbd.html Capable of solving the linear and nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation using a finite-difference method; performing Brownian dynamics simulations of the association of two molecules and of the internal dynamics of a protein.
ZAP commercial yes http://www.eyesopen.com/zaptk Very fast algorithm with Gaussian representation of the dielectric constant
Finite element
APBS No charge yes www.poissonboltzmann.org/apbs An adaptive finite element Poisson–Boltzmann solver
NA NA no NA Numerical solution of the Poisson–Boltzmann equation using tetrahedral finite-element meshes
NA NA no NA FEM using Newton-Krylov iterations
NA NA no NA A mortar FEM Poisson–Boltzmann solver
NA NA no NA A first-order system least-squares FEM for the PBE
Boundary element
AFMPB NA yes http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEGB v1 0.html An adaptive fast multipole Poisson–Boltzmann solver
FTWARE NA yes http://cvcweb.ices.utexas.edu/software Derivative boundary formulation of the problem; A smooth approximation of the molecular surface.
FFTSVD NA no NA multiscale algorithm and FFT method
FPB commercial no http://continuum-dynamics.com/lib-pro-fpb.html A hybrid approach for solving the nonlinear Poisson–Boltzmann equation