arrow
Volume 13, Issue 4
Measuring the Spontaneous Curvature of Bilayer Membranes by Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Han Wang, Dan Hu & Pingwen Zhang

Commun. Comput. Phys., 13 (2013), pp. 1093-1106.

Published online: 2013-08

Export citation
  • Abstract

We propose a mathematically rigorous method to measure the spontaneous curvature of a bilayer membrane by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, which provides description of the molecular mechanisms that cause the spontaneous curvature. As a main result, for the membrane setup investigated, the spontaneous curvature is proved to be a constant plus twice the mean curvature of the membrane in its tensionless ground state. The spontaneous curvature due to the built-in transbilayer asymmetry of the membrane in terms of lipid shape is studied by the proposed method. A linear dependence of the spontaneous curvature with respect to the head-bead diameter difference and the lipid mixing ratio is discovered. The consistency with the theoretical results provides evidence supporting the validity of our method.


  • Keywords

  • AMS Subject Headings

  • Copyright

COPYRIGHT: © Global Science Press

  • Email address
  • BibTex
  • RIS
  • TXT
@Article{CiCP-13-1093, author = {}, title = {Measuring the Spontaneous Curvature of Bilayer Membranes by Molecular Dynamics Simulations}, journal = {Communications in Computational Physics}, year = {2013}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, pages = {1093--1106}, abstract = {

We propose a mathematically rigorous method to measure the spontaneous curvature of a bilayer membrane by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, which provides description of the molecular mechanisms that cause the spontaneous curvature. As a main result, for the membrane setup investigated, the spontaneous curvature is proved to be a constant plus twice the mean curvature of the membrane in its tensionless ground state. The spontaneous curvature due to the built-in transbilayer asymmetry of the membrane in terms of lipid shape is studied by the proposed method. A linear dependence of the spontaneous curvature with respect to the head-bead diameter difference and the lipid mixing ratio is discovered. The consistency with the theoretical results provides evidence supporting the validity of our method.


}, issn = {1991-7120}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.230411.230312a}, url = {http://global-sci.org/intro/article_detail/cicp/7265.html} }
TY - JOUR T1 - Measuring the Spontaneous Curvature of Bilayer Membranes by Molecular Dynamics Simulations JO - Communications in Computational Physics VL - 4 SP - 1093 EP - 1106 PY - 2013 DA - 2013/08 SN - 13 DO - http://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.230411.230312a UR - https://global-sci.org/intro/article_detail/cicp/7265.html KW - AB -

We propose a mathematically rigorous method to measure the spontaneous curvature of a bilayer membrane by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, which provides description of the molecular mechanisms that cause the spontaneous curvature. As a main result, for the membrane setup investigated, the spontaneous curvature is proved to be a constant plus twice the mean curvature of the membrane in its tensionless ground state. The spontaneous curvature due to the built-in transbilayer asymmetry of the membrane in terms of lipid shape is studied by the proposed method. A linear dependence of the spontaneous curvature with respect to the head-bead diameter difference and the lipid mixing ratio is discovered. The consistency with the theoretical results provides evidence supporting the validity of our method.


Han Wang, Dan Hu & Pingwen Zhang. (2020). Measuring the Spontaneous Curvature of Bilayer Membranes by Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Communications in Computational Physics. 13 (4). 1093-1106. doi:10.4208/cicp.230411.230312a
Copy to clipboard
The citation has been copied to your clipboard