Related papers: Membrane buckling induced by curved filaments
Membrane organization is essential for cellular functions such as signal transduction and membrane trafficking. A major challenge is to understand the lateral heterogeneous structures in membranes and membrane fluidity in the presence of…
We study experimentally a coiling instability of cylindrical multilamellar stacks of phospholipid membranes, induced by polymers with hydrophobic anchors grafted along their hydrophilic backbone. Our system is unique in that coils form in…
Cell extrusion is an essential mechanism for controlling cell density in epithelial tissues. Another essential element of epithelia is curvature, which is required to achieve complex shapes, like in the lung or intestine. Here we introduce…
A common mechanism for intracellular transport is the use of controlled deformations of the membrane to create spherical or tubular buds. While the basic physical properties of homogeneous membranes are relatively well-known, the effects of…
We have studied the pearling instability induced on hollow tubular lipid vesicles by hydrophilic polymers with hydrophobic side groups along the backbone. The results show that the polymer concentration is coupled to local membrane…
We propose a mechanism for mechanical regulation at the membrane of living cells, based on the exchange of membrane area between the cell membrane and a membrane reservoir. The reservoir is composed of invaginated membrane microdomains…
Euler buckling epitomises mechanical instabilities: An inextensible straight elastic line buckles under compression when the compressive force reaches a critical value $F_\ast>0$. Here, we extend this classical, planar instability to the…
Buckling instabilities driven by tissue growth underpin key developmental events such as the folding of the brain. Tissue growth is disordered due to cell-to-cell variability, but the effects of this variability on buckling are unknown.…
Twisted and rope-like assemblies of filamentous molecules are common and vital structural elements in cells and tissue of living organisms. We study the intrinsic frustration occurring in these materials between the two-dimensional…
Motivated by recent experiments on biomimetic membranes exposed to several aqueous phases, we theoretically study the morphology of a membrane in contact with a liquid droplet formed via aqueous phase separation. We concentrate on membranes…
Statistical ensembles of flexible two-dimensional fluid membranes arise naturally in the description of many physical systems. Typically one encounters such systems in a regime of low tension but high stiffness against bending, which is…
Cell polarization underlies many cellular processes, such as differentiation, migration, and budding. Many living cells, such as budding yeast and fission yeast, use cytoskeletal structures to actively transport proteins to one location on…
Narrow membrane tubes are commonly pulled out from the surface of phospholipid vesicles using forces applied either through laser or magnetic tweezers or through the action of processive motor proteins. Recent examples have emerged where…
Lipid membranes, the barrier defining living cells and many of their sub-compartments, bind to a wide variety of nano- and micro-meter sized objects. In the presence of strong adhesive forces, membranes can strongly deform and wrap the…
Many species of bacteria swim through viscous environments by rotating multiple helical flagella. The filaments gather behind the cell body and form a close helical bundle, which propels the cell forward during a "run". The filaments inside…
We present a novel Monte Carlo simulation of the phase separation dynamics of a model fluid membrane. Such a phase segregation induces shape changes of the membrane and results in local `budding' under favourable conditions. We present a…
Cells are defined by lipid membranes that differ in their structure across the tree of life. While the membranes of most bacteria and eukaryotes consist of single-headed bilayer lipids, the membranes of archaea are composed of mixtures of…
Motivated by the mechanics of dynamin-mediated membrane tube fission we analyse the stability of fluid membrane tubes subjected to shear flow in azimuthal direction. We find a novel helical instability driven by the membrane shear flow…
A cell membrane can be simply regarded as composite material consisting of lipid bilayer, membrane cytoskeleton beneath lipid bilayer, and proteins embedded in lipid bilayer and linked with membrane cytoskeleton if one only concerns its…
We consider the hydrodynamics of lipid bilayers containing transmembrane proteins of arbitrary shape. This biologically-motivated problem is relevant to the cell membrane, whose fluctuating dynamics play a key role in phenomena ranging from…