Cavitation in lipid bilayers poses strict negative pressure stability limit in biological liquids

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1917195117
• Publication Date: 2020-05-02T00:06:20Z
• Authors: Matej Kanduč; Emanuel Schneck; Philip Loche; Steven Jansen; H. Jochen Schenk; Roland R. Netz
• Keywords: Ambient pressure

Biological and technological processes that involve liquids under negative pressure are vulnerable to the formation of cavities. Maximal pressures found in plants around <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"><mml:mo>−</mml:mo></mml:math> 100 bar, even though cavitation pure bulk water only occurs at much more on relevant timescales. Here, we investigate influence small solutes lipid bilayers, both constituents all biological liquids, cavities pressures. By combining molecular dynamics simulations with kinetic modeling, quantify rates biologically length scales We find contrast solutes, increase rate cavitation, which remains unproblematically low most plants. Only when approach bar does occur Our results suggest bilayer-based is what generally limits magnitude contain bilayers.