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Diffusion through thin membranes: Modeling across scales
Vesa Aho1, Keijo Mattila2, Thomas Kühn3
1Department of Physics, and Nanoscience Center, P.O. Box 35, University of Jyväskylä, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland.
Physical Review. E
|May 14, 2016
Summary
This study models membrane diffusion across multiple scales, linking macroscopic transmission conditions to mesoscopic lattice-Boltzmann simulations and microscopic particle passage. The model accurately predicts nuclear envelope permeability for enhanced yellow fluorescent protein in HeLa cells.
Area of Science:
- Multiscale modeling
- Computational physics
- Cell biology
Background:
- Diffusion through membranes is crucial in biological and physical systems.
- Accurate modeling of membrane transport across different scales remains a challenge.
- Existing models often lack integration across macroscopic, mesoscopic, and microscopic levels.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a unified multiscale model for membrane diffusion.
- To validate a mesoscopic lattice-Boltzmann scheme against macroscopic boundary conditions.
- To determine the permeability of the nuclear envelope using this multiscale approach.
Main Methods:
- Introduction of a transmission boundary condition for macroscopic modeling.
- Development and analysis of a mesoscopic lattice-Boltzmann scheme with partial-bounceback.
- Microscopic analysis of particle passage time.
- Numerical simulations and comparison with analytical solutions.
Main Results:
- The mesoscopic approach consistently approximates macroscopic transmission boundary conditions.
- An expression for thin membrane permeability was derived from the mesoscopic scheme.
- Numerical results align with analytical solutions.
- Simulated transport through the nuclear envelope matched experimental data.
Conclusions:
- The proposed multiscale model effectively describes membrane diffusion.
- The lattice-Boltzmann scheme provides a robust mesoscopic approximation.
- The study successfully determined the nuclear envelope permeability to enhanced yellow fluorescent protein in HeLa cells.
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