A Biomechanical Study On The Interaction Between Cell Membrane And Nanomaterials

As nanotechnologies are increasingly applied in the biological field,the interactions of nanomaterials and biological components is receiving widespread attention.The laws of interaction between nanomaterials and lipid membranes are critical in biological applications such as drug transport,gene carriers,and biological imaging.Here we adopt the dissipative particle dynamics method to explore two kinds of nanomaterials: nanoparticles and carbon nanocones.For the nanoparticles,we construct a nanoparticle-membrane model and investigate the effect of nanoparticle stiffness on its penetrability.Through the DPD simulations we find that stiffness and hydrophobicity have a coupling effect on the penetrating ability of nanoparticle: for hydrophilic nanoparticles,greater stiffness will lead to higher penetrability,while for hydrophilic nanoparticles the penetrability are weakened by increasing stiffness.We further verify that different stiffness and hydrophilicity of nanoparticles determine their different deformations,which influence the penetrating ability,through free energy analysis,changes in morphology and contact area,and simulation of symmetrical and asymmetric rigid nanoparticles.For carbon nanocones,we established a nanocone-vesicle model and explored its potential toxicity and mechanism on vesicles.We found that for untruncated nanocones the apex angle and oxidized positions will affect their contact positions and stable status on the vesicle surface,and no obvious toxicity is observed.While we found that the truncated carbon nanocones can enter the lipid membrane with being perpendicular to the surface and serve the transmembrane channels,causing the leakage of vesicles.More simulations show that the greater apex angle and smaller aspect ratio of the truncated nanocone will lead to more toxicities.We then apllied the free energy theory and preferable angle simulations to verify the effects of apex angle and aspect ratio,demonstrating the mechanism of toxicity of truncated nanocones.Through the research in this article,the simulation results can be compared with the theoretical and experimental results,providing useful guidelines for constructing nano-drugs or nano-robots with reasonable structure and lower toxicity.