A novel mesoscale particulate model of a lipid membrane is developed in which the local directionality of the 2D surface is extracted from the state of aggregation of particles in a local cluster. Particles interact via (i) a pair-wise Lennard-Jones interaction, (ii) a normal, restoring force that imparts both a spontaneous curvature and bending elasticity by penalizing particle departure from the local plane, and (iii) an anisotropic Brownian motion that imparts fluidity. The anisotropic multi-body potentials are parameterized such that the simulation produces a stable, elastic 2D membrane with in-plane fluidity. The meshless elastic membrane will be integrated with a model representing embedded membrane proteins. The integrated model will be used to probe the importance of protein coat geometry and other characteristics such as signaling reaction induced charge in mediating membrane deformation � a precondition for vesicle formation and endocytosis.

Meshless particulate model for the study of cell membrane deformations

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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