Membrane Partitioning of Anionic, Ligand-Coated Nanoparticles Is Accompanied by Ligand Snorkeling, Local Disordering, and Cholesterol Depletion
Figure 2
Number density maps of the negatively charged end-terminal groups of the NP ligands.
The calculation was performed over the last 500 ns of the simulation for the different systems. The snapshots correspond to the final frame of the simulation and are depicted to indicate the relative position of the NP with respect to the lipid bilayer at the end of the simulation. White corresponds to zero density of the negatively-charged moieties, indicating the snorkeling effect, where charged-end terminal groups orient themselves towards the lipid head groups and outside of the bilayer core. A typical RGB color scale is used to show increasing occupancy. Only the NP core is shown for clarity. The coloring is the same as in Figure 1.