Solvent effects in ionic transport through transmembrane protein channels.
Ion transport through a gramicidin A like channel in the presence of solvent molecules with van der Waals parameters of water has been studied by means of the molecular dynamics simulation technique. It was found that the presence of solvent molecules in the channel has a tendency to equalize the effective masses of the ions through "association" thus giving the experimentally found ion selectivity to the gramicidin A channel.
Biological Transport↗