Using systematic numerical simulations, we study the self-assembly of elongated curved nanoparticles on lipid vesicles. Our simulations are based on molecular dynamics of a coarse-grained implicit-solvent model of self-assembled lipid membranes with a Langevin thermostat. Here we consider only the case wherein the nanoparticle-nanoparticle interaction is repulsive, only the concave surface of the nanoparticle interacts attractively with the lipid head groups and only the outer surface of the vesicle is exposed to the nanoparticles. Upon their adhesion on the vesicle, the curved nanoparticles generate local curvature on the membrane. The resulting nanoparticle-generated membrane curvature leads in turn to nanoparticle self-assembly into two main types of aggregates corresponding to chain aggregates at low adhesion strengths and aster aggregates at high adhesion strength. The chain-like aggregates are due to the fact that at low values of adhesion strength, the nanoparticles prefer to lie parallel to each other. As the adhesion strength is increased, a splay angle between the nanoparticles is induced with a magnitude that increases with increasing adhesion strength. The origin of the splay angles between the nanoparticles is shown to be saddle-like membrane deformations induced by a tilt of the lipids around the nanoparticles. This phenomenon of membrane mediated self-assembly of anisotropically curved nanoparticles is explored for systems with varying nanoparticle number densities, adhesion strength, and nanoparticle intrinsic curvature.

Computer simulations of an implicit-solvent particle-based model are performed to investigate the interactions between small spherical nanoparticles and tensionless lipid bilayers. We found that nanoparticles are either unbound, wrapped by the bilayer, or endocytosed. The degree of wrapping increases with increasing the adhesion strength. The transition adhesion strength between the unbound and partially wrapped states decreases as the nanoparticle diameter is increased. We also observed that the transition adhesion strength between the wrapped states and endocytosis state decreases with increasing the nanoparticle diameter. The partial wrapping of the nanoparticles by the tensionless bilayer is explained by an elastic theory which accounts for the fact that the interaction between the nanoparticle and the bilayer extends beyond the contact region. The theory predicts that for small nanoparticles, the wrapping angle increases continuously with increasing the adhesion strength. However, for relatively large nanoparticles, the wrapping angle exhibits a discontinuity between weakly and strongly wrapped states. The size of the gap in the wrapping angle between the weakly wrapped and strongly wrapped states increases with decreasing the range of nanoparticle-bilayer interaction. C 2016 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx

The self-assembly of spherical nanoparticles, resulting from their adhesion on tensionless lipid membranes, is investigated through molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained implicit-solvent model. Our simulations indicate that, with increasing adhesion strength, while reshaping the membrane, the nanoparticles aggregate into a sequence of self-assemblies corresponding to in-plane chains, two-row tubular (bitube) chains, annular (ring) chains, and single-row tubular (tube) chains. Annealing scans, with respect to adhesion strength, show that the transitions between the various phases are highly first-order with significant hystereses. Free energy calculations indicate that the gas and single-row tubular chains are stable over wide ranges of adhesion strength. In contrast, the in-plane chains are only stable for small aggregates of NPs, and the bitube and ring chains are long-lived metastable states over a wide range of adhesion strength.