Permeation of cisplatin through the membranes of normal and cancer cells: a molecular dynamics study

In this work, realistic models of membranes and cancer cells are developed. A special focus is given to their cholesterol content. It is shown that the loss of lipid asymmetry in the membranes of cancer cells leads to a decrease of their permeability to cisplatin by one order of magnitude in comparison to the membranes of normal cells. The change of cholesterol molar ratio from 0% to 33% also decreases the permeability of the membrane by approximately one order of magnitude. The permeability of pure DOPC membrane is 5-6 orders of magnitude higher than one of the membrane with realistic lipid composition, which makes it as an inadequate model for the studies of drug permeability.