An accurate and efficient empirical approach for calculating the dielectric self-energy and ion-ion pair potential in continuum models of biological ion channels.

This paper presents empirical formulas for calculating the dielectric self-energy and ion-ion pair interactions in cylindrical ion channels. The proposed approach can be extended to more complex channel structures, for example, (i) a "straight" channel with variable radius and (ii) a "curved" channel with constant radius. For calibration purposes, we compare results obtained based on the approximate effective potentials developed herein to exact electrostatic calculations obtained via the algorithm of Graf et al.: the agreement is satisfactory. A dynamic lattice Monte Carlo (DLMC) technique is used to further assess the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed empirical potentials. The concentration profiles and current-voltage curves produced with our simple empirical energy formulas are in excellent agreement with numerical results obtained using the algorithm of Graf et al., which calculates all relevant electrostatic forces exactly. The use of effective ion-ion potentials greatly reduces the computer memory required to perform DLMC ion permeation simulations in dielectrically inhomogeneous environments, thus enabling treatment of larger systems than can be handled by numerically exact techniques.