We present a new scheme to estimate the elastic properties of biological membranes in computer simulations. The method analyzes the thermal fluctuations in terms of a coupled undulatory mode, which disentangle the mixing of the mesoscopic undulations and the high-q protrusions. This approach makes possible the accurate estimation of the bending modulus both for membranes under stress and in tensionless conditions; it also extends the applicability of the fluctuation analysis to the small membrane areas normally used in atomistic simulations. Also we clarify the difference between the surface tension imposed in simulations through a pressure coupling barostat, and the surface tension that can be extracted from the analysis of the low wave vector dependence of the coupled undulatory fluctuation spectrum. The physical analysis of the peristaltic mode is also refined, by separating the bulk and protrusions contributions. We illustrate the procedure by analyzing 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine bilayers. The bending moduli obtained from our analysis, shows good agreement with available experiments.
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7 September 2013
Research Article|
September 05 2013
Thermal fluctuations and bending rigidity of bilayer membranes
Pedro Tarazona;
Pedro Tarazona
a)
1Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) and Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales Nicolás Cabrera,
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
, Madrid 28049, Spain
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Enrique Chacón;
Enrique Chacón
b)
2Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, CSIC, 28049 Madrid, Spain and Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales Nicolás Cabrera,
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
, Madrid 28049, Spain
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Fernando Bresme
Fernando Bresme
c)
3Department of Chemistry,
Imperial College London
, SW7 2AZ London, United Kingdom
and Department of Chemistry, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
, Trondheim, Norway
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a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
b)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
c)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
J. Chem. Phys. 139, 094902 (2013)
Article history
Received:
June 20 2013
Accepted:
July 31 2013
Citation
Pedro Tarazona, Enrique Chacón, Fernando Bresme; Thermal fluctuations and bending rigidity of bilayer membranes. J. Chem. Phys. 7 September 2013; 139 (9): 094902. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4818421
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