Antimicrobial Effects of Monoglycerides on Lipid Membranes This is a multidisciplinary project drawing from the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering and the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Science at the University of Strathclyde, alongside external collaboration with ABITEC Corporation. The project aims to understand the fundamentals of the antimicrobial mechanisms of action displayed by a set of known antimicrobial lipids. A growing trend in research towards antibacterial drug development has been a shift in focus away from traditional antibiotics and instead towards alternative antimicrobial compounds, which employ mechanisms of action that are often drastically different from traditional antibiotic pathways. Lipids – in particular monoglycerides – are promising candidates for new antimicrobial compounds, being active against a range of bacterial species. While there are several hypothesised mechanisms of action for antimicrobial lipids, all of which are focused on cell membrane interactions, little has been done in the currently published literature to investigate these interactions at an atomistic level. All-atom molecular dynamics simulations of medium and long chain monoglycerides with basic model membranes have identified correlations between monoglyceride concentration and the extent of membrane property changes. It has also identified differences in changes induced by different size lipids. The extent of membrane disruption caused by the lipids is clearly visible in Figure 1. Future work will be focused on determining energy barriers to lipid entry and modelling more realistic bacterial membranes to produce a broad understanding of the underlying mechanisms of antimicrobial interactions within membranes. Figure 1. The model membrane is simulated in aqueous solution to find its equilibrium structure (left). The simulation is repeated with monoglyceride insertion and reveals significant disruption (right). The images are produced using VMD (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/), with water and ions not shown for clarity. For more information about the project contact Dr Paul Mulheran (paul.mulheran@strath.ac.uk), Reader at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Dr Valerie Ferro (v.a.ferro@strath.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer at Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences or Dr Karina Kubiak-Ossowska (karina.kubiak@strath.ac.uk), High Performance Computing Knowledge Exchange Associate, ARCHIE-WeSt, at the University of Strathclyde. For a list of the research areas in which ARCHIE-WeSt users are active please click here.