Related papers: Excess area dependent scaling behavior of nano-siz…
Theoretical studies of nearly spherical vesicles and microemulsion droplets, that present typical examples for thermally-excited systems that are subject to constraints, are reviewed. We consider the shape fluctuations of such systems…
We identify a class of composite membranes: fluid bilayers coupled to an elastic meshwork, that are such that the meshwork's energy is a function $F_\mathrm{el}[A_\xi]$ \textit{not} of the real microscopic membrane area $A$, but of a…
Membrane tension is an acknowledged regulator of a wide array of cell functions; however, whether it acts locally or globally in different contexts remains debated. Recent experiments that locally perturb tension and measure the response…
Lipid membranes constitute very particular materials: on the one hand, they break very easily under microscopical stretching; on the other hand, they are extremely flexible, presenting deformations even at small scales. Consequently, a…
We study the shape, elasticity and fluctuations of the recently predicted (cond-mat/9510172) and subsequently observed (in numerical simulations) (cond-mat/9705059) tubule phase of anisotropic membranes, as well as the phase transitions…
When a ligand that is bound to an integral membrane receptor is pulled, the membrane and the underlying cytoskeleton can deform before either the membrane delaminates from the cytoskeleton or the ligand detaches from the receptor. If the…
We present Monte Carlo simulations of an ultra coarse-grained lipid bilayer with different number of lipids on both leaflets. In the simulations, we employ a new method for measuring the elastic parameters of the membrane, including the…
The equilibrium and fluctuation methods for determining the surface tension, $\sigma$, and bending modulus, $\kappa$, of a bilayer membrane with a fixed projected area are discussed. In the fluctuation method the elastic coefficients…
Cell layers eliminate unwanted cells through the extrusion process, which underlines healthy versus flawed tissue behaviors. Although several biochemical pathways have been identified, the underlying mechanical basis including the forces…
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 explore thermal fluctuations of thin planar membranes with a frozen spatially-varying background metric and a shear modulus. We focus on a special class of $D$-dimensional ``warped membranes'' embedded in a $d-$dimensional space with…
We develop the elastic theory for inversion-asymmetric tethered membranes and use it to identify and study their possible phases. Asymmetry in a tethered membrane causes spontaneous curvature, which in general depends upon the local…
We use analytical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations to determine the thermal fluctuation spectrum of a membrane patch of a few tens of nanometer in size, whose corners are located at a fixed distance $d$ above a plane rigid surface.…
The tensile force along a cylindrical lipid bilayer tube is proportional to the membrane's bending modulus and inversely proportional to the tube radius. We show that this relation, which is experimentally exploited to measure bending…
Through mechanical forces, biological cells remodel the surrounding collagen network, generating striking deformation patterns. Tethers-tracts of high densification and fiber alignment-form between cells, thinner bands emanate from cell…
The effect of AC electric fields on the elasticity of supported lipid bilayers has been investigated at the microscopic level using grazing incidence synchrotron x-ray scattering. A strong decrease in the membrane tension up to 1mN/m and a…
Thin cylindrical tethers are common lipid bilayer membrane structures, arising in situations ranging from micromanipulation experiments on artificial vesicles to the dynamic structure of the Golgi apparatus. We study the shape and formation…
Excitations of MHz acoustic modes are studied numerically in 10-um-thick silicon disk membranes with a radius of 100 and 500 um actuated by an attached 1-um-thick (AlSc)N thin-film transducer. It is shown how higher-harmonic membrane modes…
Several numerical methods for measuring the bending rigidity and the spontaneous curvature of fluid membranes are studied using two types of meshless membrane models. The bending rigidity is estimated from the thermal undulations of planar…
One of the most widely used methods for determination of the bending elasticity modulus of model lipid membranes is the analysis of the shape fluctuations of nearly spherical lipid vesicles. The theoretical basis of this analysis is given…