Martini 3 Coarse-Grained Force Field for Cholesterol

Lipid membranes

Journal article

Parametrization

Phopholipids

Sterols

Author

Luís Borges-Araújo, Ana C. Borges-Araújo, Tugba Nur Ozturk, Daniel P. Ramirez-Echemendia, Balázs Fábián, Timothy S. Carpenter, Sebastian Thallmair, Jonathan Barnoud, Helgi I. Ingólfsson, Gerhard Hummer, D. Peter Tieleman, Siewert J. Marrink, Paulo C. T. Souza, and Manuel N. Melo

Doi

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00547

Citation (APA 7)

Borges-Araújo, L., Borges-Araújo, A. C., Ozturk, T. N., Ramirez-Echemendia, D. P., Fábián, B., Carpenter, T. S., … & Melo, M. N. (2023). Martini 3 Coarse-Grained Force Field for Cholesterol. Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 19(20), 7387-7404.

Abstract

Cholesterol plays a crucial role in biomembranes by regulating various properties, such as fluidity, rigidity, permeability, and organization of lipid bilayers. The latest version of the Martini model, Martini 3, offers significant improvements in interaction balance, molecular packing, and inclusion of new bead types and sizes. However, the release of the new model resulted in the need to reparameterize many core molecules, including cholesterol. Here, we describe the development and validation of a Martini 3 cholesterol model, addressing issues related to its bonded setup, shape, volume, and hydrophobicity. The proposed model mitigates some limitations of its Martini 2 predecessor while maintaining or improving the overall behavior.