Molecular Modeling of PEGylated Peptides, Dendrimers, and Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Biomedical Applications

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) has been conjugated to many drugs or drug carriers to increase their solubility and circulating lifetime, and reduce toxicity. This has motivated many experimental studies to understand the effect of PEGylation on delivery efficiency. To complement the experimental findings and uncover the mechanism that cannot be captured by experiments, all-atom and coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been performed. This has become possible, due to recent advances in simulation methodologies and computational power. Simulations of PEGylated peptides show that PEG chains wrap antimicrobial peptides and weaken their binding interactions with lipid bilayers. PEGylation also influences the helical stability and tertiary structure of coiled-coil peptides. PEGylated dendrimers and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) were simulated, showing that the PEG size and grafting density significantly modulate the conformation and structure of the PEGylated complex, the interparticle aggregation, and the interaction with lipid bilayers. In particular, simulations predicted the structural transition between the dense core and dense shell of PEGylated dendrimers, the phase behavior of self-assembled complexes of lipids, PEGylated lipids, and SWNTs, which all favorably compared with experiments. Overall, these new findings indicate that simulations can now predict the experimentally observed structure and dynamics, as well as provide atomic-scale insights into the interactions of PEGylated complexes with other molecules.