Related papers: Lipid membrane-mediated attractions between curvat…
Biological membranes undergo noticeable thermal fluctuations at physiological temperatures. When two membranes approach each other, they hinder the out of plane fluctuations of the other. This hindrance leads to an entropic repulsive force…
We consider a one-dimensional elastic membrane, which is pushed by growing filaments. The filaments tend to grow by creating local protrusions in the membrane and this process has surface energy and bending energy costs. Although it is…
Particles embedded in a fluctuating interface experience forces and torques mediated by the deformations and by the thermal fluctuations of the medium. Considering a system of two cylinders bound to a fluid membrane we show that the…
Using analytical calculations and computer simulations we consider both the lateral diffusion of a membrane protein and the fluctuation spectrum of the membrane in which the protein is embedded. The membrane protein interacts with the…
Curvature-sensing and curvature-remodeling proteins are known to reshape cell membranes, and this remodeling event is essential for key biophysical processes such as tubulation, exocytosis, and endocytosis. Curvature-inducing proteins can…
The electrostatic contribution to spontaneous membrane curvature is calculated within Poisson-Boltzmann theory under a variety of assumptions and emphasizing parameters in the physiological range. Asymmetric surface charges, either fixed…
Cell membranes interact via anchored receptor and ligand molecules. Central questions on cell adhesion concern the binding affinity of these membrane-anchored molecules, the mechanisms leading to the receptor-ligand domains observed during…
Active materials take advantage of their internal sources of energy to self-organize in an automated manner. This feature provides a novel opportunity to design micron-scale machines with minimal required control. However, self-organization…
Recent experiments by Y. Gambin et al. [PNAS 103, 2098 (2006)] have called into question the applicability of the Saffman-Delbruck diffusivity for proteins embedded in the lipid bilayers. We present a simple argument to account for this…
It is well known that lipid membranes respond to a threshold transmembrane electric field through a reversible mechanism called electroporation, where hydrophilic water pores form across the membrane, an effect widely used in biological…
We analytically study membrane mediated interactions between inclusions embedded in a tubular membrane. We model inclusions as constraints coupled to the curvature tensor of the membrane tube. First, as special test cases, we analyze the…
In cell membranes, proteins and lipids are organized into sub-micrometric nanodomains of varying size, shape and composition, performing specific functions. Despite their biological importance, the detailed morphology of these nanodomains…
Protein fibril accumulation at interfaces is an important step in many physiological processes and neurodegenerative diseases as well as in designing materials. Here we show, using $\beta$-lactoglobulin fibrils as a model, that semiflexible…
Many types of peripheral and transmembrane proteins can sense and generate membrane curvature. Laterally isotropic proteins and crescent proteins with twofold rotational symmetry, such as Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs superfamily proteins, have been…
We consider membranes adhered through specific receptor-ligand bonds. Thermal undulations of the membrane induce effective interactions between adhesion sites. We derive an upper bound to the free energy that is independent of interaction…
Interaction between active materials and the boundaries of geometrical confinement is key to many emergent phenomena in active systems. For living active matter consisting of animal cells or motile bacteria, the confinement boundary is…
Biological membranes are known to form various structural motifs, from lipid bilayers to tubular filaments and networks facilitating e.g. adhesion and cell-cell communication. To understand the biophysical processes underpinning lipid-lipid…
Using computer simulations we show that lipid membranes can mediate linear aggregation of spherical nanoparticles binding to it for a wide range of biologically relevant bending rigidities. This result is in net contrast with the isotropic…
Many lipid membrane-mediated transport processes--such as mechanically-gated channel activation and solute transport--involve structural and dynamical features on membrane thickness length scales. Most existing membrane models, however,…
We study the deformation of a lipid membrane in response to a local pH modification. Experimentally, a basic solution is microinjected close to a giant unilamellar vesicle. A local deformation appears in the zone of the membrane that is…