Multipolar Reactive DPD: A Novel Tool for Spatially Resolved Systems Biology

TL;DR

This paper introduces Multipolar Reactive DPD, an extension of dissipative particle dynamics, enabling the simulation of complex, spatially resolved biological systems with self-organizing membrane structures and physics-consistent dynamics.

Contribution

The novel multipolar interaction extension allows for realistic modeling of membrane formation and dynamics in complex biological systems within the DPD framework.

Findings

Extended membrane structures emerge self-organized in simulations.

Membrane dynamics follow established physical scaling laws.

The method provides a stable and fluid environment for kinetic studies.

Abstract

This article reports about a novel extension of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) that allows the study of the collective dynamics of complex chemical and structural systems in a spatially resolved manner with a combinatorially complex variety of different system constituents. We show that introducing multipolar interactions between particles leads to extended membrane structures emerging in a self-organized manner and exhibiting both the necessary mechanical stability for transport and fluidity so as to provide a two-dimensional self-organizing dynamic reaction environment for kinetic studies in the context of cell biology. We further show that the emergent dynamics of extended membrane bound objects is in accordance with scaling laws imposed by physics.