Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 10: Interfaces and Thin Films II
CPP 10.3: Talk
Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 10:15–10:30, C 130
Hydration Interactions between Biological Membranes: Molecular Dynamics Analysis — •Matej Kanduc1, Emanuel Schneck2, and Roland Netz1 — 1Freie Universität Berlin — 2Technische Universität München
Interactions between biological surfaces result from the interplay of various physical contributions. Dispersion interactions and screened electrostatics have been successfully treated in a continuum approximation, whereas the so-called hydration interaction caused by water structuring at interfaces, still elude a quantitative description. In fact, the interaction between charge-neutral phospholipid membranes is dominated by this contribution in a wide range of separations. Despite the qualitative agreements of various theories, it has become a consensus view during the last decades that in order to explain the hydration interaction on a quantitative level, the structure of the solvent has to be taken into account explicitly. This insight has drawn the attention towards the application of atomistic simulations, where water molecules are treated explicitly including all relevant degrees of freedom. We introduce a novel thermodynamic extrapolation method that provides greatly improved interaction measurements in Molecular Dynamics simulations. The results are quantitatively compared with classical membrane swelling experiments.