Cholesterol Perturbs Lipid Bilayers Nonuniversally
Jianjun Pan, Thalia T. Mills, Stephanie Tristram-Nagle, and John F. Nagle
Cholesterol is well known to modulate the physical properties of biomembranes. Using modern x-ray scattering methods, we have studied the effects of cholesterol on the bending modulus K, the thickness D, and the orientational order parameter S of lipid bilayers. We find that the effects are differen ... [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 198103 (2008)] published Thu May 15, 2008.
Radial Distribution of RNA Genomes Packaged inside Spherical Viruses
Se Il Lee and Toan T. Nguyen
The problem of RNA genomes packaged inside spherical viruses is studied. The RNA-capsid attraction is assumed to be nonspecific and occurs at the inner capsid surface only. For weak attraction, RNA concentration is maximum at the center of the capsid to maximize their configurational entropy. For st ... [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 198102 (2008)] published Thu May 15, 2008.
Ordering and lyotropic behavior of a silicon-supported cationic and neutral lipid system studied by neutron reflectivity
F. Domenici, C. Castellano, A. Congiu, G. Pompeo, and R. Felici
Self-assembling of amphipathic lipid films on solid support allows the structural investigation of important biological model systems, such as the vectorlike lipid membranes, in order to improve DNA transfection in nonviral gene therapy. We present a neutron reflectivity study of a binary lipid syst ... [Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 193901 (2008)] published Tue May 13, 2008.
Mode excitation Monte Carlo simulations of mesoscopically large membranes
Oded Farago
Solvent-free coarse grained models represent one of the most promising approaches for molecular simulations of mesoscopically large membranes. In these models, the size of the simulated membrane is limited by the slow relaxation time of the longest bending mode. Here, we present a Monte Carlo algori ... [J. Chem. Phys. 128, 184105 (2008)] published Tue May 13, 2008.
Traffic of single-headed motor proteins KIF1A: Effects of lane changing
Debashish Chowdhury, Ashok Garai, and Jian-Sheng Wang
KIF1A kinesins are single-headed motor proteins which move on cylindrical nanotubes called microtubules (MTs). A normal MT consists of 13 protofilaments on which the equispaced motor binding sites form a periodic array. The collective movement of the kinesins on a MT is, therefore, analogous to vehi ... [Phys. Rev. E 77, 050902 (2008)] published Mon May 12, 2008.