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Thermal Tunneling of Homopolymers through Amphiphilic Membranes

ACS Macro Lett.6, pp 247–251 (2017)

Marco Werner, Jasper Bathmann, Vladimir A. Baulin, and Jens-Uwe Sommer

We propose a theory to predict the passive translocation of flexible polymers through amphiphilic membranes. By using a generic model for the potential felt by a monomer across the membrane we calculate the free energy profile for homopolymers as a function of their hydrophobicity. Our model explains the translocation window and the translocation rates as a function of chain hydrophobicity in quantitative agreement with simulation results. The potential model leads to a new adsorption transition where chains switch from a one-sided bound adsorbed state into a bridging state through the membrane core by increasing the hydrophobicity beyond a critical value. We demonstrate that the hydrophobicity leading to the fastest translocation coincides with the solution for the critical point of adsorption in the limit of long chains.

Full text

polymer translocating through lipid bilayer membrane

DOI:10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00980

Marco Werner

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