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Though 1-alkanols are well known to have anesthetic properties, the mode of operation remains enigmatic. We perform extensive atomistic molecular dynamics simulation to study the partitioning of 1- alkanols of different chain-lengths in…
Unravelling the physical mechanisms behind the organisation of lipid domains is a central goal in cell biology and membrane biophysics. Previous studies on cells and model lipid bilayers featuring phase-separated domains found an intricate…
Bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs) are an essential component of many biological systems, forming a functional barrier between the cell and the surrounding environment. When the membrane relaxes from a structural perturbation, the dynamics of…
Experiments on supported lipid bilayers featuring liquid ordered/disordered domains have shown that the spatial arrangement of the lipid domains and their chemical composition are strongly affected by the curvature of the substrate.…
Phase separation of multicomponent lipid membranes is characterized by the nucleation and coarsening of circular membrane domains that grow slowly in time as $\sim t^{1/3}$, following classical theories of coalescence and Ostwald ripening.…
We use a coarse-grained molecular model to study the self-assembly process of complexes of cationic and neutral lipids with DNA molecules ("lipoplexes") - a promising nonviral carrier of DNA for gene therapy. We identify the resulting…
We present atomistic molecular dynamics results for fully hydrated bilayers composed of ceramide NS-24:0, free fatty acid 24:0 and cholesterol, to address the effect of the different components in the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of…
For some time now, we have been using a FRET-based strategy to make high-resolution studies of phase behavior in ternary lipid-raft membrane mixtures. Our FRET experiments can be carried out on ordinary, polydisperse multilamellar vesicle…
We study the phase separation of binary lipid mixtures that form bicontinuous cubic phases. The competition between non-uniform Gaussian membrane curvature and line tension leads to a very rich phase diagram, where we observe symmetry…
Cationic lipid membranes are known to form compact complexes with DNA and to be effective as gene delivery agents both in vitro and in vivo. Here we employ molecular dynamics simulations for a detailed atomistic study of lipid bilayers…
A molecular model is proposed of a bilayer consisting of fully saturated DPPC and mono unsaturated DOPC. The model not only encompasses the constant density within the hydrophobic core of the bilayer, but also the tendency of chain segments…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is the mechanism underlying the formation of biomolecular condensates. Disordered protein regions often drive phase separation, but molecular interactions of disordered protein regions are not well understood,…
Since the lipid raft model was developed at the end of the last century, it became clear that the specific molecular arrangements of phospholipid assemblies within a membrane have profound implications in a vast range of physiological…
Molecular sorting in biological membranes is essential for proper cellular function. It also plays a crucial role in the budding of enveloped viruses from host cells. We recently proposed that this process is driven by phase separation,…
In order to precisely quantify the fundamental interactions between heterogeneous lipid membranes with coexisting liquid-ordered (Lo) and liquid-disordered (Ld) domains, we performed detailed osmotic stress SAXS experiments by exploiting…
We consider the phase separation in an asymmetrically charged lipid bilayer membrane consisting of neutral and negatively charged lipids that are in contact with in/out ionic solutions having different ionic strengths. The two asymmetric…
Under appropriate conditions, mixtures of cationic and neutral lipids and DNA in water condense into complexes in which DNA strands form local 2D smectic lattices intercalated between lipid bilayer membranes in a lamellar stack. These…
Atherosclerotic plaques form in artery walls due to a chronic inflammatory response driven by lipid accumulation. A key component of the inflammatory response is the interaction between monocyte-derived macrophages and extracellular lipid.…
Membrane-mediated particle interactions depend both on the properties of the particles themselves and the membrane environment in which they are suspended. Experiments have shown that chiral rod-like inclusions dissolved in a colloidal…
Combining extensive molecular dynamics simulations of lipid bilayer systems of varying chemical composition with single-trajectory analyses we systematically elucidate the stochastic nature of the lipid motion. We observe subdiffusion over…