Arrangement of Spherical Nanoparticles inside Nanoscale Liposomes

The understanding of the interaction between nanoparticles (NPs) and lipid membranes is important to the development of safe and effective nanomaterials for a wide array of technological and biomedical applications. The adhesion of aspherical NP on a lipid membrane leads to its wrapping by the membrane and its deformations. This in turn leads to effective forces between the NPs and, in some instances, to their self-assembly on the membrane. Here,we present results based on coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of an implicit solvent model in conjunction with the Weighted Histogram Analysis Method, of the arrangement of two spherical NPs, with uniform surfaces, inside nanoscale liposomes. In contrast to the case where the NPs adhere to the exterior surface of liposomes¹, we found that NPs that adhere to the interior surface of liposomes pefer configurations in which they are always apart from each other.

[1] E.J. Spangler and M. Laradji, J. Chem. Phys. 154, 244902 (2021).