How sterol tilt regulates properties and organization of lipid membranes and membrane insertions.

ABSTRACT: Serving as a crucial component of mammalian cells, cholesterol critically regulates the functions of biomembranes. This review focuses on a specific property of cholesterol and other sterols: the tilt modulus χ that quantifies the energetic cost of tilting sterol molecules inside the lipid membrane. We show how χ is involved in determining properties of cholesterol-containing membranes, and detail a novel approach to quantify its value from atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Specifically, we link χ with other structural, thermodynamic, and mechanical properties of cholesterol-containing lipid membranes, and delineate how this useful parameter can be obtained from the sterol tilt probability distributions derived from relatively small-scale unbiased MD simulations. We demonstrat

SUBMITTER: Khelashvili G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3631440 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature