Related papers: Curvature variation controls particle aggregation …
We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of a colloidal fluid membrane composed of chiral rod-like viruses. The membrane is modeled by a triangular mesh of beads connected by bonds in which the bonds and beads are free to move at each Monte…
Cells often migrate on curved surfaces inside the body, such as curved tissues, blood vessels or highly curved protrusions of other cells. Recent \textit{in-vitro} experiments provide clear evidence that motile cells are affected by the…
Recent findings suggest that shell protein distribution and morphology of bacterial microcompartments regulate the chemical fluxes facilitating reactions which dictate their biological function. We explore how the morphology and component…
In living cells, membrane morphology is regulated by various proteins. Many membrane reshaping proteins contain a Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs (BAR) domain, which consists of a banana-shaped rod. The BAR domain bends the biomembrane along the rod…
Living cells employ excitable reaction-diffusion waves for internal cellular functions, in which curvature-inducing proteins are often involved. However, the role of their mechanochemical coupling is not well understood. Here, we report the…
Cell membranes are anchored to the cytoskeleton via immobile inclusions. We investigate the effect of such anchors on the in-plane dynamics of a fluid membrane and mobile inclusions (proteins) embedded in it. The immobile particles lead to…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
We have studied the collective motion of polar active particles confined to ellipsoidal surfaces. The geometric constraints lead to the formation of vortices that encircle surface points of constant curvature (umbilics). We have found that…
We study a physical model for the interaction between general inclusions bound to fluid membranes that possess finite tension, as well as the usual bending rigidity. We are motivated by an interest in proteins bound to cell membranes that…
Receptor-mediated endocytosis requires that the energy of adhesion overcomes the deformation energy of the plasma membrane. The resulting driving force is balanced by dissipative forces, leading to deterministic dynamical equations. While…
Many biological systems fold thin sheets of lipid membrane into complex three-dimensional structures. This microscopic origami is often mediated by the adsorption and self-assembly of proteins on a membrane. As a model system to study…
Understanding interactions between microparticles and lipid membranes is of increasing importance, especially for unraveling the influence of microplastics on our health and environment. Here, we study how a short-ranged adhesive force…
In the framework of a phase field model of a single cell crawling on a substrate, we investigate how the properties of the cell membrane affect the shape and motility of the cell. Since the membrane influences the cell dynamics on multiple…
Biological cells use droplets to separate components and spatially control their interior. Experiments demonstrate that the complex, crowded cellular environment affects the droplet arrangement and their sizes. To understand this behavior,…
The growth, form, and division of prebiotic vesicles, membraneous bags of fluid of varying components and shapes is hypothesized to have served as the substrate for the origin of life. The dynamics of these out-of-equilibrium structures is…
The generation of anisotropic shapes occurs during morphogenesis of almost all organisms. With the recent renewal of the interest in mechanical aspects of morphogenesis, it has become clear that mechanics contributes to anisotropic forms in…
We model membrane proteins as anisotropic objects characterized by symmetric-traceless tensors and determine the coupling between these order-parameters and membrane curvature. We consider the interactions between transmembrane proteins…
Autophagy is an intracellular degradation process that is mediated by de novo formation of autophagosomes. Autophagosome formation involves dynamic morphological changes; a disk-shaped membrane cisterna grows, bends to become a cup-shaped…
Biological membranes mainly consist of lipids and proteins. While the proteins have many functions as single molecules, the membrane as a whole displays physical properties that cannot be explained on the single molecule level. For example,…
Induced by proteins within the cell membrane or by differential growth, heating, or swelling, spontaneous curvatures can drastically affect the morphology of thin bodies and induce mechanical instabilities. Yet, the interaction of…