Translocation and insertion of an amphiphilic polymer

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2007 Jul;76(1 Pt 1):011801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.76.011801. Epub 2007 Jul 2.

Abstract

Translocation of amphiphilic polymers (random and block copolymers), consisting of hydrophilic and hydrophobic monomers, threading a pore is studied by using a three-dimensional dynamic Monte Carlo simulation. We find that there is a "translocation-insertion" threshold in the fraction of hydrophobic monomers on an amphiphilic polymer. The translocation time is given by simple scaling laws and increases with increasing the fraction of hydrophobic monomers.