# Confined crowded polymers near attractive surfaces

## TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to explore how confinement, solvent quality, and crowders influence polymer shapes and conformations near attractive surfaces, revealing state transitions dependent on these factors.

## Contribution

It provides new insights into polymer conformations under confinement and crowding, especially the transition between adsorbed and globular states influenced by crowder density and solvent quality.

## Key findings

- Polymer conformation largely unaffected by crowders in good solvents.
- Transition from adsorbed to globular state in poor solvents with increasing crowders.
- Distinct conformational states identified depending on wall attraction and crowder density.

## Abstract

We present results from molecular dynamics simulations of a spherically confined neutral polymer in the presence of crowding agents, studying polymer shapes and conformations as a function of the confining potential, solvent quality and the density of crowders. The conformations of the polymer under good solvent conditions are largely independent of crowder density, even when the polymer is strongly confined. However, for poor solvents and attractive walls, the polymer shows a transition between an adsorbed extended state to a globular conformation on the surface as a function of crowder particle density. This state differs from both the desorbed globular conformation in the absence of any wall interactions and the adsorbed globular conformation at low values of the attractive wall interactions. We revisit the earlier understanding of the adsorption of confined polymers on curved, attractive surfaces in the light of these results.