Related papers: Ion pump activity generates fluctuating electrosta…
Fluid membranes made out of lipid bilayers are the fundamental separation structure in eukaryotic cells. Many physiological processes rely on dramatic shape and topological changes (e.g. fusion, fission) of fluid membrane systems. Fluidity…
Tension in lipid membranes is often controlled externally, by pulling on the boundary of the membrane or changing osmotic pressure across a curved membrane. But modifications of the tension can also be induced in an internal fashion, for…
While modern structural biology has provided us with a rich and diverse picture of membrane proteins, the biological function of membrane proteins is often influenced by the mechanical properties of the surrounding lipid bilayer. Here we…
Continuum simulation is employed to study ion transport and fluid flow through a nanopore in a solid-state membrane under an applied potential drop. Results show the existence of concentration polarization layers on the surfaces of the…
We construct viscous fluid flow sourced by a force dipole embedded in a cylindrical fluid membrane, coupled to external embedding fluids. We find analytic expressions for the flow, in the limit of infinitely long and thin tubular membranes.…
We consider the lateral diffusion of a protein interacting with the curvature of the membrane. The interaction energy is minimized if the particle is at a membrane position with a certain curvature that agrees with the spontaneous curvature…
We theoretically investigate the membrane fluctuations of red blood cells with focus laid on the role of the cytoskeleton, viewing the system as a membrane coupled to sparse spring network. This model is exactly solvable and enables us to…
How can a collection of motile cells, each generating contractile nematic stresses in isolation, become an extensile nematic at the tissue-level? Understanding this seemingly contradictory experimental observation, which occurs irrespective…
We present measurements of the fluctuation spectrum of giant vesicles containing bacteriorhodopsin (BR) pumps using video-microscopy. When the pumps are activated, we observe a significant increase of the fluctuations in the low wavevector…
We use coarse-grained Monte Carlo simulations to study the elastic properties of charged membranes in solutions of monovalent and pentavalent counterions. The simulation results of the two cases reveal trends opposite to each other. The…
The interaction of fluid membranes with a scaffold, which can be a planar surface or a more complex structure, is intrinsic to a number of systems - from artificial supported bilayers and vesicles to cellular membranes. In principle, these…
In this paper, we bring together our efforts in identifying and understanding nonequilibrium phase segregation driven by active processes in the living cell, with special focus on the segregation of cell membrane components driven by active…
We investigated the properties of bilayer fluctuations using molecular dynamics. We modeled the amphipathic molecules as a diatomic molecule, constructed a bilayer in the solvent, and observed the Fourier spectrum of its fluctuations. The…
The speed at which ions enter a sheath is a fundamental property of a plasma that also provides a useful boundary condition in modeling. A recent theory proposed that this can be significantly influenced by an instability-enhanced friction…
We study a membrane tube with unidirectional ion pumps driving an osmotic pressure difference. A pressure driven peristaltic instability is identified, qualitatively distinct from similar tension-driven Rayleigh type instabilities on…
The movement of ionic solutions is an essential part of biology and technology. Fluidics, from nano- to micro- to microfluidics, is a burgeoning area of technology which is all about the movement of ionic solutions, on various scales. Many…
Biologically driven non-equilibrium fluctuations are often characterized by their non-Gaussianity or by an "effective temperature", which is frequency dependent and higher than the ambient temperature. We address these two measures…
Biological water is an ionic solution containing both monovalent and divalent ions. However, the effects of divalent ions on the dynamics of biological water remain largely unknown. Here, we investigate how the transport dynamics of water…
In two-dimensional electron systems, plasmons are gapless and long-lived collective excitations of propagating charge density oscillations. We study the fluctuation mechanism of plasmon-assisted transport in the regime of electron…
The complex interplay between the various attractive and repulsive forces that mediate between biological membranes governs an astounding array of biological functions: cell adhesion, membrane fusion, self-assembly, binding-unbinding…