Polymer sailing on rafts within lipid membranes.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the dynamics of macromolecules adsorbed from extracellular fluids onto cell membranes is crucial for elucidating basic cellular processes and advancing applications in biotechnology, such as biosensing, therapeutics, and synthetic biology. However, this is complicated by the interplay between membrane heterogeneity, macromolecule conformation, and fluid hydrodynamics. We investigate the dynamics of linear polymers on binary lipid membranes using hydrodynamics simulations and single-molecule tracking experiments. We find that the preferential adsorption of nanosized polymer onto the raft-forming component of the membrane induces and stabilizes a single lipid raft that colocalizes with the polymer. This lipid raft, in turn, imposes dynamic confinement on the polymer, resulting

SUBMITTER: Gao J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12260545 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature