Surface Reconfiguration of Binary Lipid Vesicles via Electrostatically Induced Nanoparticle Adsorption

F Aydin and M Dutt, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B, 120, 6646-6656 (2016).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.6b02334

We demonstrate the adsorption of nano particles (NPs) with charged patches onto a binary vesicle encompassing polar neutral and polar zwitterionic lipids via an implicit solvent coarse-grained model and molecular dynamics simulations. Our investigations on the interactions between NPs and a binary vesicle demonstrate that the adsorption of charged NPs onto a binary vesicle surface can induce structural reorganization of the lipid bilayer. The approach of the NP to the vesicle surface is accompanied by spatial reorganization of the zwitterionic lipids, and the degree of reorganization is found to depend on the NP patch size. Interfacial adsorption of the NP is observed to promote a group of zwitterionic lipids to cluster at the adsorption site. Spatial reorganization of the zwitterionic lipids is activated by favorable electrostatic interactions with the NP and not between the lipids. The favorable as the electrostatic interaction between oppositely charged lipid headgroup moieties increases and assists the clustering process NP approaches the vesicle surface. In addition, the availability of zwitterionic lipids in the vesicle affects the adsorption dynamics of multiple NPs. Our results can be used for the design of reconfigurable biomaterials for applications in drug delivery, sensing, and imaging.

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