A guiding potential method for evaluating the bending rigidity of tensionless lipid membranes from molecular simulation

Shuhei Kawamoto, Takenobu Nakamura, Steven O. Nielsen, Wataru Shinoda

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    24 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    A new method is proposed to estimate the bending rigidity of lipid membranes from molecular dynamics simulations. An external cylindrical guiding potential is used to impose a sinusoidal deformation to a planar membrane. The bending rigidity is obtained from the mean force acting on the cylinder by calibrating against a discretized Helfrich model that accounts for thermal fluctuations of the membrane surface. The method has been successfully applied to a dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine bilayer simulated with a coarse-grained model. A well-converged bending rigidity was obtained for the tension-free membrane and showed reasonable agreement with that obtained from the height fluctuation spectrum.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number034108
    JournalJournal of Chemical Physics
    Volume139
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013 Jul 21

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Physics and Astronomy(all)
    • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'A guiding potential method for evaluating the bending rigidity of tensionless lipid membranes from molecular simulation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this