Biological and synthetic membranes: What can be learned from a coarse-grained description?

2006/09/13 by Marcus Müller, Marcus Mueller, Kirill Katsov +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech #physics.bio-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2006.08.003

88 pages, 39 figures, accepted to Physics Reports, version with higher resolution figures available at http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/~katsov/pubs/pub024.pdf

arxiv created 2006/09/13 · openalex publication_date 2006/10/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

We discuss the role coarse-grained models play in the investigation of the structure and thermodynamics of bilayer membranes, and we place them in the context of alternative approaches. Because they reduce the degrees of freedom and employ simple and soft effective potentials, coarse-grained models can provide rather direct insight into collective phenomena in membranes on large time and length scales. We present a summary of recent progress in this rapidly evolving field, and pay special attention to model development and computational techniques. Applications of coarse-grained models to changes of the membrane topology are illustrated with studies of membrane fusion utilizing simulations and self-consistent field theory.

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