Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 16: Poster Session I

BP 16.23: Poster

Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 17:00–19:30, Poster D

Coarse-grained simulation studies of peptide-induced pore formation — •Gregoria Illya and Markus Deserno — Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany

The interactions of cell membrane and antimicrobial peptides, which are amphiphilic molecules, can be very complicated. In the low concentration phase, antimicrobial peptides adsorb to the surface of the membrane, while in the high concentration phase, they insert across the membrane, resulting in the formation of pores. Despite being intensively studied experimentally, the mechanism of pore formation and its structure are remain disputed.

We investigate the interactions between lipid bilayers and amphiphilic peptides using a solvent free coarse-grained simulation technique. In our model, each lipid is represented by a 'hydrophilic' bead and three 'hydrophobic' beads. The amphiphilic peptide is modelled as a 'hydrophobic-hydrophilic' tube with 'hydrophilic' sites at the tube's ends.

It is observed that as the attractive interaction between peptides and lipids is successively increased, the preferred state of the peptide changes from desorbed to adsorbed to inserted. We show how several peptides which bind to the membrane surface cooperatively insert and subsequently induce the formation of pores.