Dependence of fullerene aggregation on lipid saturation due to a balance between entropy and enthalpy.

ABSTRACT: It is well-known that fullerenes aggregate inside lipid membranes and that increasing the concentration may lead to (lethal) membrane rupture. It is not known, however, how aggregation and rupture depend on the lipid type, what physical mechanisms control this behavior and what experimental signatures detect such changes in membranes. In this paper, we attempt to answer these questions with molecular simulations, and we show that aggregation and membrane damage depend critically on the degree of saturation of the lipid acyl chains: unsaturated bonds, or "kinks", impose a subtle but crucial compartmentalization of the bilayer into core and surface regions leading to three distinct fullerene density maxima. In contrast, when the membrane has only fully saturated lipids, fullerenes prefer to

SUBMITTER: Nalakarn P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6355782 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature