Interaction of POPC, DPPC, and POPE with the μ opioid receptor: A coarse-grained molecular dynamics study.

The μ opioid receptor (μOR), which is part of the G protein-coupled receptors family, is a membrane protein that is modulated by its lipid environment. In the present work, we model μOR in three different membrane systems: POPC (1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine), POPE (1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine), and DPPC (1, 2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine) through 45 μs molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at the coarse-grained level. Our theoretical studies provide new insights to the lipid-induced modulation of the receptor.