Molecular dynamics simulation of an entire cell

Journal article
Lipid membranes
Proteins
Metabolites
DNA
Vesicles
Author

Jan A. Stevens, Fabian Grünewald, P. A. Marco van Tilburg, Melanie König, Benjamin R. Gilbert, Troy A. Brier, Zane R. Thornburg, Zaida Luthey-Schulten and Siewert J. Marrink

Doi

Citation (APA 7)

Stevens, J. A., Grünewald, F., van Tilburg, P. M., König, M., Gilbert, B. R., Brier, T. A., … & Marrink, S. J. (2023). Molecular dynamics simulation of an entire cell. Frontiers in Chemistry, 11, 1106495.

Abstract

The ultimate microscope, directed at a cell, would reveal the dynamics of all the cell’s components with atomic resolution. In contrast to their real-world counterparts, computational microscopes are currently on the brink of meeting this challenge. In this perspective, we show how an integrative approach can be employed to model an entire cell, the minimal cell, JCVI-syn3A, at full complexity. This step opens the way to interrogate the cell’s spatio-temporal evolution with molecular dynamics simulations, an approach that can be extended to other cell types in the near future.