IMR Press / FBL / Volume 14 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.2741/3308

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Water transport in aquaporins: molecular dynamics simulations
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1 Supramolecular Biology, International Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yokohama City University, 1-7-29, Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230-0045, Japan
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2009, 14(4), 1283–1291; https://doi.org/10.2741/3308
Published: 1 January 2009
Abstract

Aquaporins and aquaglyceroporins are membrane channel proteins that selectively transport water and small molecules such as glycerol across biological membranes. Molecular dynamics simulations have made substantial contributions toward understanding the permeation mechanisms of aquaporins in atomic detail. Osmotic pressure is the driving force of the transport by aquaporins. The osmotic water permeability of aquaporins can be estimated from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations by using linear response theory. The relationship between osmotic permeability and channel structure was investigated by the recently proposed pf-matrix method. In addition to the water transport, other functions of aquaporins and aquaglyceroporins, i.e., glycerol permeation, proton blockage, and gating, have also been extensively studied by molecular dynamics simulations.

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