Transmembrane electric potentials and membrane curvature have always provided pathways to mediate different cellular processes. We present results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of lipid monolayer composed of 1, 2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) and cholesterol (CHOL) under a transverse electric field to monitor the effect of electric field on membrane containing ganglioside monosialo 1 (GM1). Four systems were studied with membrane monolayer in the presence and absence of GM1 with and without applying electric field along the normal of the monolayer. The applied transmembrane electric field was 0.4 mV/Å which corresponds to the action potential of animal cell. Our results indicate that the electric field induces a considerable lateral stress on the monolayer in the presence of GM1, which is evident from the lateral pressure profiles. It was found that due to the application of electric field major perturbation was caused to the system containing GM1, manifested by the bending of the monolayer. We believe this study provides correlation between electric field and spontaneous membrane bending, specially based on the membrane composition. The consequences of these MD simulations provide considerable insights to different biological phenomenon and lipid membrane models.
Keywords: Action potential; External electric field; Gangliosides; Membrane bending; Molecular dynamics.