Effects of Fullerene on lipid bilayers displaying different liquid ordering: a coarsegrained molecular dynamics study
Effects of Fullerene on lipid bilayers displaying different liquid ordering: a coarsegrained molecular dynamics study
J. Sastre, I. Mannelli, R. Reigada.
Biochim. Biophys. Acta – General Subjects, 1861 (2017) 2872.
Our simulations show that segregating lipid membranes accumulate fullerene molecules in liquid-disordered
domains. This behavior may have important consequences on the activity of biological membranes and on the
bioconcentration of fullerene in living organisms.
The toxic effects and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and in particular of Fullerene particles, are matters of serious concern. We report on a systematic coarse-grained molecular dynamics study of the interaction of fullerene molecules with simple model cell membranes. Addition of fullerene particles to phase-segregated ternary membranes is also investigated in the context of the lipid raft model for the organization of the cell membrane. Fullerene addition to lipid membranes modifies their structural properties like thickness, area and internal ordering of the lipid species, as well as dynamical aspects such as molecular diffusion and cholesterol flip-flop. Interestingly, we show that phase-segregating ternary lipid membranes accumulate fullerene molecules preferentially in the liquid-disordered domains, and this may have important consequences on the activity of biological cell membranes and on the bioconcentration of fullerene in living organisms.