Bending Modulus of Lipid Membranes from Density Correlation Functions.

ABSTRACT: The bending modulus κ quantifies the elasticity of biological membranes in terms of the free energy cost of increasing the membrane corrugation. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations provide a powerful approach to quantify κ by analyzing the thermal fluctuations of the lipid bilayer. However, existing methods require the identification and filtering of non-mesoscopic fluctuation modes. State of the art methods rely on identifying a smooth surface to describe the membrane shape. These methods introduce uncertainties in calculating κ since they rely on different criteria to select the relevant fluctuation modes. Here, we present a method to compute κ using molecular simulations. Our approach circumvents the need to define a mesoscopic surface or an orientation field for the lipid tails explici

SUBMITTER: Hernandez-Munoz J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9097289 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature