Nature Communications - Not all components of the lysosome damage response pathway have been defined. Here, the authors discover that the bridge-like lipid transport protein VPS13C senses lysosomal...

Martini 3 parameters for GM1 and GM2. Contribute to MeloLab/GangliosideParameters development by creating an account on GitHub.

An intriguing feature of many bacterial membranes is their prevalence of non-bilayer-forming lipids, such as the cone-shaped phosphatidylethanolamines and cardiolipins. Many membrane-active antimicrob...

The Martini model is a coarse-grained force field allowing simulations of biomolecular systems as well as a range of materials, including different types of nanomaterials of technological interest. Re...

Nucleotide cofactor parameters developed for Martini 2.2 and 3. - MeloLab/CofactorParameterization

Using computers to solve biochemical challenges. All the fun, none of the dishwashing! https://www.itqb.unl.pt/labs/multiscale-modeling

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 the inclusion of new bead types and sizes. However, the release of the new model resulted in the need to re-parameterize 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 overall behavior.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has killed over 6 million people and is havi...

Phosphoinositides are a family of membrane phospholipids that play crucial roles in membrane regulatory events. As such, these lipids are often a key part of molecular dynamics simulation studies of biological membranes, in particular of those employing coarse-grain models because of the potential long times and sizes of the involved membrane processes. Version 3 of the widely used Martini coarse grain force field has been recently published, greatly refining many aspects of biomolecular interactions. In order to properly use it for lipid membrane simulations with phosphoinositides, we put forth the Martini 3-specific parameterization of inositol, phosphatidylinositol, the seven physiologically relevant phosphorylated derivatives of phosphatidylinositol. Compared to parameterizations for earlier Martini versions, focus was put on a more accurate reproduction of the behavior seen in both atomistic simulations and experimental studies, including the signaling relevant phosphoinositide interaction with divalent cations. The models we develop improve upon the conformational dynamics of phosphoinositides in the Martini force field and provide stable topologies at typical Martini timesteps. They are able to reproduce experimentally known protein-binding poses as well as phosphoinositide aggregation tendencies. The latter were tested both in the presence and absence of calcium, and include correct behavior of PI(4,5)P2 calcium-induced clusters, which can be of relevance for regulation.