Membrane buckling induced by curved filaments
Abstract
We present a novel buckling instability relevant to membrane budding in eukaryotic cells. In this mechanism, curved filaments bind to a lipid bilayer without changing its intrinsic curvature. As more and more filaments adsorb, newly added ones are more and more strained, which destabilizes the flat membrane. We perform a linear stability analysis of filament-dressed membranes and find that the buckling threshold is within reasonable in vivo parameter values. We account for the formation of long tubes previously observed in cells and in purified systems. We study strongly deformed dressed membranes and their bifurcation diagram numerically. Our mechanism could be validated by a simple experiment.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0903.3363,
title = {Membrane buckling induced by curved filaments},
author = {Martin Lenz and Daniel J. G. Crow and Jean-François Joanny},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.3363},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures; title and abstract modified, typos corrected, references added