Special Issue "Molecular Simulations of Biomembranes: From Biophysics Fundamentals to Biological Function, 2nd Edition"

Dear Colleagues,

Cellular membranes are crucial to the transportation of materials and information, serving as semipermeable physical barriers in order to maintain physiological balance between composites on both sides. Plasma, nuclear, and mitochondrial membranes play special roles in cell signalling and are involved in diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, neurodegenerative diseases, etc. Membrane constituents mainly comprise versatile lipids, membrane proteins, cholesterols, hydrocarbons, and other small molecules. Membranes are dynamic in nature, and simulating membranes to address the functions of membrane proteins, ion channels, and lipid bilayers requires a time-dependent formalism including stochasticity. The fundamentals of biophysics, such as interactions among membrane lipids and proteins, bilayer elasticity addressing the fluctuations in the physical barrier’s structure and geometry, and the dielectric conditions of membranes’ hydrophobic core and hydrophilic surfaces need to be considered in order to thoroughly understand membrane functions. Classical and quantum mechanical tunnelling through ion channels spanning the thickness of the bilayer have been recently explored, generating a great deal of interest.

This Special Issue encourages contributions from biophysicists, biologists, biochemists, pharmaceutical scientists, medical scientists, agricultural scientists, plant biologists, biomedical engineers, and researchers in related disciplines who actively employ simulations, computations, and experimental investigations, including in silico, in vitro and in vivo assays and modelling, to investigate diverse biomembrane functions. We seek articles that attend to the structure and functions of plasma, nuclear and mitochondrial membranes, and any related aspects. Articles addressing drug discovery and nanoparticle- and drug-based cytotoxicity, involving membranes as either targets or off-targets of pharmacological agents, are especially welcome.

Dr. Md Ashrafuzzaman
Prof. Dr. Jack A. Tuszynski
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• plasma, mitochondrial and nuclear membranes
• lipids
• membrane proteins
• ion channels
• membrane dynamics
• membrane transport
• simulation
• computation
• membrane-based diseases
• membrane protein mutations
• membrane-drug interactions
• drug-induced cytotoxicity