Related papers: Voltage-gated lipid ion channels
We investigate the permeability of lipid membranes for fluorescence dyes and ions. We find that permeability reaches a maximum close to the chain melting transition of the membranes. Close to transitions, fluctuations in area and…
Artificial bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs), along with patch-clamped membranes, are frequently used for functional analyses of membrane proteins. In both methods, the electric properties of membranes are characterized by only one parameter,…
We present a simple one-dimensional trapping model prompted by the problem of ion current across biological membranes. The trap is modeled mimicking the ionic channel membrane behaviour. Such voltage-sensitive channels are open or closed…
Ion channels are proteins with a hole down the middle embedded in cell membranes. Membranes form insulating structures and the channels through them allow and control the movement of charged particles, spherical ions, mostly Na+, K+, Ca++,…
Electrochemical phenomena in biology often unfold in confined geometries where micrometer- to millimeter-scale domains coexist with nanometer-scale interfacial diffuse charge layers. We analyze a model lipid membrane-electrolyte system…
Understanding interactions between membranes requires measurements on well-controlled systems close to natural conditions, in which fluctuations play an important role. We have determined, by grazing incidence X-ray scattering, the…
Using analytical calculations and computer simulations we consider both the lateral diffusion of a membrane protein and the fluctuation spectrum of the membrane in which the protein is embedded. The membrane protein interacts with the…
Voltage gated channel proteins cooperate in the transmission of membrane potentials between nerve cells. With the recent progress in atomic-scaled biological chemistry it has now become established that these channel proteins provide highly…
We investigate the possible influence of poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the lipid bilayer of cell membranes on the conduction properties of the selectivity filter of voltage gated ion channels. Any change of this conductivity can…
The non-selective voltage activated cation channel from the human red cells, which is activated at depolarizing potentials, has been shown to exhibit counter-clockwise gating hysteresis. We have analyzed the phenomenon with the simplest…
Biomembranes are thin capacitors with the unique feature of displaying phase transitions in a physiologically relevant regime. We investigate the voltage and lateral pressure dependence of their capacitance close to their chain melting…
Evidence for capillary waves at a liquid/vapor interface are presented from extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a system containing up to 1.24 million Lennard-Jones particles. Careful measurements show that the total interfacial…
Plasma membranes appear as deformable systems wherein molecules are free to move and diffuse giving rise to condensed microdomains (composed of ordered lipids, transmembrane proteins and cholesterol) surrounded by disordered lipid…
The soliton wave model of action potentials, and the proposal of induced lipid pores, are potentially paradigm shifting ideas which challenge accepted views of the Hodgkin-Huxley model and of protein-based ion channels. These two proposals…
Lipid membranes form the barrier between the inside and outside of cells and many of their subcompartments. As such, they bind to a wide variety of nano- and micrometer sized objects and, in the presence of strong adhesive forces, strongly…
We study the stress distribution profiles and the height and thickness fluctuations of lipid membranes in the tilted gel state by Monte Carlo simulations of a generic coarse-grained model for lipid membranes, which reproduces many known…
The inactivation of a Na+ channel occurs when the activation of the charged S4 segment of domain DIV is followed by the binding of an intracellular hydrophobic motif which blocks conduction through the ion pore. The voltage dependence of…
Transmembrane ion flow through channel proteins undergoing density fluctuations may cause lateral gradients of the electrical potential across the membrane giving rise to electrophoresis of charged channels. A model for the dynamics of the…
A position-dependent stochastic diffusion model of gating in ion channels is developed by considering the spatial variation of the diffusion coefficient between the closed and open states. It is assumed that a sensor which regulates the…
Cellular membranes are elastic lipid bilayers that contain a variety of proteins, including ion channels, receptors, and scaffolding proteins. These proteins are known to diffuse in the plane of the membrane and to influence the bending of…