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In a real lipid membrane, the diffusion coefficient may be limited by: the size of the membrane; the inertia of the membrane (finite Reynolds number) the effect of the liquid surrounding the membrane; Philip Saffman and Max Delbrück calculated the diffusion coefficient for these three cases, and showed that Case 3 was the relevant effect. [1]
A model lipid bilayer is any bilayer assembled in vitro, as opposed to the bilayer of natural cell membranes or covering various sub-cellular structures like the nucleus. They are used to study the fundamental properties of biological membranes in a simplified and well-controlled environment, and increasingly in bottom-up synthetic biology for ...
Lipid bilayers are complicated molecular systems with many degrees of freedom. Thus, atomistic simulation of membrane and in particular ab initio calculations of its properties is difficult and computationally expensive. Quantum chemical calculations has recently been successfully performed to estimate dipole and quadrupole moments of lipid ...
In biology, membrane fluidity refers to the viscosity of the lipid bilayer of a cell membrane or a synthetic lipid membrane. Lipid packing can influence the fluidity of the membrane. Viscosity of the membrane can affect the rotation and diffusion of proteins and other bio-molecules within the membrane, there-by affecting the functions of these ...
Building on the fluid mosaic model, a framework called the proteolipid code was proposed in order to explain membrane organization. [8] The proteolipid code relies on the concept of a zone, which is a functional region of membrane that is assembled and stabilized with both protein and lipid dependency.
This interaction also increases the mechanical rigidity of fluid membrane lipid bilayers [9] and decreases their lateral diffusion coefficient. [10] In contrast, the addition of cholesterol to gel phase bilayers disrupts local packing order, increasing the diffusion coefficient [10] and decreasing the elastic modulus.
The fluid property of functional biological membranes had been determined through labeling experiments, x-ray diffraction, and calorimetry.These studies showed that integral membrane proteins diffuse at rates affected by the viscosity of the lipid bilayer in which they were embedded, and demonstrated that the molecules within the cell membrane are dynamic rather than static.
The coordinate files with calculated membrane boundaries are downloadable. The site allows visualization of protein structures with membrane boundary planes through Jmol. The database was widely used in experimental and theoretical studies of membrane-associated proteins.