title: Biomembranes in atomistic and coarse-grained simulations.
abstract: The architecture of biological membranes is tightly coupled to the localization, organization, and function of membrane proteins. The organelle-specific distribution of lipids allows for the formation of functional microdomains (also called rafts) that facilitate the segregation and aggregation of membrane proteins and thus shape their function. Molecular dynamics simulations enable to directly access the formation, structure, and dynamics of membrane microdomains at the molecular scale and the specific interactions among lipids and proteins on timescales from picoseconds to microseconds. This review focuses on the latest developments of biomembrane force fields for both atomistic and coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, and the different levels of coarsening of biomolecular structures. It also briefly introduces scale-bridging methods applicable to biomembrane studies, and highlights selected recent applications.
authors.affiliation: Computational Biology, Department of Biology, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Staudtstr. 5, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Kristyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pluhackova
authors.forename: Rainer A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Böckmann
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry*; D021962:Membrane Microdomains / Q000737:chemistry*; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D008051:Lipid Bilayers