Dresden 2006 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 40: Poster Session II

AKB 40.3: Poster

Mittwoch, 29. März 2006, 16:30–19:30, P3

Simulation studies of lipid bilayer around a conical inclusion and mediated interactions between inclusions. — •Gregoria illya and Markus Deserno — MPI Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany

We present a mesoscopic model for lipid bilayers with embedded conical inclusions, which is investigated using a solvent free coarse-grained simulation technique [1].

Above the gel-fluid transition temperature, i.e., in the fluid phase, the lipids are not in a spontaneously tilted phase. Inserting a conical object into the membrane will impose a local tilt on the surrounding lipids and also bend the membrane. The tilt of the lipids will decay with some characteristic decay length [2]. We measure this lipid tilt decay length for an almost flat membrane where the inclusion only imposes a tilt on the lipids and for a membrane where the inclusion also bends it.

Since transmembrane inclusions can deform the membrane, these deformations will generate interactions between the inclusions. We are currently investigating the force between two inclusions mediated by the tilt field and the membrane deformation, and compare the results with the theoretical prediction [2].

[1] Cooke, I. R., Kremer, K., and Deserno, M., Physical Review E, 72, 011506, 2005. [2] Mueller, M. M., Deserno, M., and Guven, J., to appear in Phys. Rev. E.