PNNL

Abstract

The outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria is composed of a phospholipid inner leaflet and a lipopolysaccharide outer leaflet. The chemical structure of lipopolysaccharide confers an asymmetric character to outer membranes that has been shown to play an important role in the in the electrical properties of porins, low permeability and intrinsic antibiotic resistance of Gram-negative bacteria. In the present work, atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of two different configurations of the outer membrane of Pseudomonas aeruginosa under periodic boundary conditions were carried out in order to i) validate model-derived properties against the available experimental data, ii) identify the properties whose dynamics can be sampled on nanosecond timescales, and iii) evaluate the dependence of the convergence of structural and dynamical properties on the initial configuration of the system, within the chosen force field and simulation conditions. Because the relaxation times associated with the motions of individual LPS monomers in outer membranes is very slow, the two initial configurations do not converge to a common ensemble of configuration on the nanosecond time scale. However, a number of properties of the outer membrane that will significantly impact the structural and internal dynamics of transmembrane proteins, most notably the electrostatic potential and molecular density, do converge within the simulated time scale. For these properties, a good agreement with the available experimental data was found. Such molecular model, capable of accounting for the high asymmetry and low fluidity characteristics of outer membranes, will certainly benefit future atomistic simulations of outer membrane proteins.