The Structures of Heterogeneous Membranes and Their Interactions with an Anticancer Peptide: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Ghulam Abbas; Alfredo E Cardenas; Ron Elber

doi:10.3390/life12101473

The Structures of Heterogeneous Membranes and Their Interactions with an Anticancer Peptide: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Life (Basel). 2022 Sep 22;12(10):1473. doi: 10.3390/life12101473.

Authors

Ghulam Abbas¹, Alfredo E Cardenas², Ron Elber^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ National Center for Bioinformatics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
² Oden Institute for Computational and Engineering Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.

Abstract

We conduct molecular dynamics simulations of model heterogeneous membranes and their interactions with a 24-amino acid peptide-NAF-1^44-67. NAF-1^44-67 is an anticancer peptide that selectively permeates and kills malignant cells; it does not permeate normal cells. We examine three membranes with different binary mixtures of lipids, DOPC-DOPA, DOPC-DOPS, and DOPC-DOPE, with a single peptide embedded in each as models for the diversity of biological membranes. We illustrate that the peptide organization in the membrane depends on the types of nearby phospholipids and is influenced by the charge and size of the head groups. The present study sheds light on early events of permeation and the mechanisms by which an amphiphilic peptide crosses from an aqueous solution to a hydrophobic membrane. Understanding the translocation mechanism is likely to help the design of new permeants.

Keywords: anticancer peptide; cell-penetrating peptide; heterogeneous membranes; molecular dynamics simulations.

Abstract

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