Related papers: Membranes by the Numbers
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,…
Biological membranes and vesicles play a central role in living systems, forming dynamic interfaces that regulate cellular organization and function. Classical descriptions of membrane mechanics that are rooted in equilibrium statistical…
Heterogeneities in the cell membrane due to coexisting lipid phases have been conjectured to play a major functional role in cell signaling and membrane trafficking. Thereby the material properties of multiphase systems, such as the line…
Native membranes of biological cells display melting transitions of their lipids at a temperature of 10-20 degrees below body temperature. Such transitions can be observed in various bacterial cells, in nerves, in cancer cells, but also in…
Membranes are present in all cells and tissues. Mathematical models of cells and tissues need a compact mathematical description of membranes with a resolution of about 1 nm. Membranes isolate cells because ions have difficulty penetrating…
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…
Membrane tubulation is a ubiquitous process that occurs both at the plasma membrane and on the membranes of intracellular organelles. These tubulation events are known to be mediated by forces applied on the membrane either due to motor…
Gas transport across cell membrane is a very important process in biochemistry which is essential for many crucial tasks, including cell respiration pH regulation in the cell. In the late 1990's, the suggestion that gasses are transported…
Active contributions to fluctuations are a direct consequence of metabolic energy consumption in living cells. Such metabolic processes continuously create active forces, which deform the membrane to control motility, proliferation as well…
Membrane computing is a well-established and successful research field which belongs to the more general area of molecular computing. Membrane computing aims at defining parallel and non-deterministic computing models, called membrane…
The biological membrane, which compartmentalizes the cell and its organelles, exhibit wide variety of macroscopic shapes of varying morphology and topology. A systematic understanding of the relation of membrane shapes to composition,…
A variety of models for the membrane-mediated interaction of particles in lipid membranes, mostly well-established in theoretical physics, is reviewed from a mathematical perspective. We provide mathematically consistent formulations in a…
Living systems, particularly multicellular systems, often seem hopelessly complex. But recent studies have suggested that beneath this complexity, there may be unifying quantitative principles that we are only now starting to unravel. All…
This study develops an equation for describing three-dimensional membrane transformation through proliferation of its component cells regulated by morphogen density distributions on the membrane. The equation is developed in a…
A feature of current membrane systems is the fact that objects and membranes are persistent. However, this is not true in the real world. In fact, cells and intracellular proteins have a well-defined lifetime. Inspired from these biological…
This paper considers membranes of globular structure in the framework of the cell model technique. Coupled micropolar and Brinkman-type equations are used to model the flow of micropolar fluid through a spherical cell, consisting of solid…
Membranes regulate transport in a wide variety of industrial and biological applications. The microscale geometry of the membrane can significantly affect overall transport through the membrane, but the precise nature of this multiscale…
Mechanics of fluid membranes may be described in terms of the concepts of mechanical deformations and stresses, or in terms of mechanical free-energy functions. In this paper, each of the two descriptions is developed by viewing a membrane…
Motility is an essential factor for an organism's survival and diversification. With the advent of novel single-cell technologies, analytical frameworks and theoretical methods, we can begin to probe the complex lives of microscopic motile…
A flat membrane with given shape is displayed; two points in the membrane are randomly selected; the probability that the separation between the points have a specified value is sought. A simple method to evaluate the probability density is…