Translocation of Polysaccharides Through the Glomerulus Membrane

Glomerulus is located in the kidney and is responsible for keeping plasma proteins in the blood and filtering water, electrolytes, and solutes through the channels in the glomerular walls. It is important to understand glomerular functions because it's essential to dialysis treatments. The glomerular membrane is known to contain narrow channels, and it is a mystery how big polysaccharide molecules can pass through such a membrane. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulation to model how large polysaccharides like dextrans can pass through the channels that are narrower than the radii of the polysaccharides. By developing a protocol to build a randomly branched dextran and simulating it under water flow, we can explore how the shape of dextran changes with the speed of water flow in order to understand how large polysaccharides flow through the glomerular walls.