Biomembrane frontiers. Nanostructures, Models, and the Design of Life
by Roland Faller, Thomas Jue, Marjorie L. Longo & Subhash H. Risbud (Humana Press) Reviewed by Anthony G. Lee
There are two broad approaches to the study of biological membranes. The biochemical approach concentrates on molecular detail and has seen spectacular advances over the last few years with the determination of the X-ray structures for many important classes of membrane protein. The biophysical approach is different, concentrating not on the molecular detail but, instead, on basic physical principles that should apply to all membranes and all membrane proteins. As suggested by the title, this volume takes the biophysical approach. Necessarily, the approach adopted in many chapters is very mathematical, but most chapters include enough background discussion for the more non-mathematical to understand at least some of what is being said. It is based on a workshop held in early 2008, and would be of most interest to postdoctoral fellows and above working in a Physics environment.
Although all-atom molecular dynamics simulations have proved to be very powerful approaches to understanding membrane structure and function, they are limited in the time and length scales that are feasible, even with the most powerful of modern computers. The first two chapters of this volume present statistical mechanical and continuum theories that overcome some of these limitations and allow the calculation of important properties of lipid bilayers, although at the expense of molecular realism. The following three chapters are concerned with all-atom and coarse-grained simulations of monolayers and bilayers. The remaining chapters are more experimentally based. A chapter by Simonsen describes the process of spin coating in which a drop of lipid dissolved in solvent is placed on a surface which is then rotated as the solvent evaporates, to produce a uniform coating of the lipid on the surface. A chapter by Kang and Kenworthy describes the analysis of FRAP experiments. Other chapters of potential interest to readers of Molecular Membrane Biology include a chapter on pore-forming toxins and two on lipoproteins.