查看文章

Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, we systematically investigate the receptor-mediated endocytosis of elastic nanoparticles (NPs) with different sizes, ranging from 25 to 100 nm, and shapes, including sphere-like, oblate-like, and prolate-like. Simulation results provide clear evidence that the membrane wrapping efficiency of NPs during endocytosis is a result of competition between receptor diffusion kinetics and thermodynamic driving force. The receptor diffusion kinetics refer to the kinetics of receptor recruitment that are affected by the contact edge length between the NP and membrane. The thermodynamic driving force represents the amount of required free energy to drive NPs into a cell. Under the volume constraint of elastic NPs, the soft spherical NPs are found to have similar contact edge lengths to rigid ones and to less efficiently be fully wrapped due to their elastic deformation …