Related papers: Membrane morphologies induced by arc-shaped scaffo…
The membrane curvature of cells and intracellular compartments continuously adapts to enable cells to perform vital functions, from cell division to signal trafficking. Understanding how membrane geometry affects these processes in vivo is…
The shape transformations of fluid membranes induced by curved protein rods are studied using meshless membrane simulations. The rod assembly at low rod density induces a flat membrane tube and oblate vesicle. It is found that the…
Phase-separated biomolecular condensates with liquid-like properties play a key role in the organization and compartmentalization of the intracellular environment. Condensate-mediated capillary forces acting on membranes drive…
Living systems are chiral on multiple scales, from constituent biopolymers to large scale morphology, and their active mechanics is both driven by chiral components and serves to generate chiral morphologies. We describe the mechanics of…
Eukaryotic cells intrinsically change their shape, by changing the composition of their membrane and by restructuring their underlying cytoskeleton. We present here further studies and extensions of a minimal physical model, describing a…
We study the equilibrium shapes of vesicles, with an in-plane nematic order, using a Monte-Carlo scheme and show that highly curved shapes, like tubes and discs, with a striking similarity to the structures engendered by certain curvature…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Biological membranes constitute boundaries of cells and cell organelles. Physico-chemical mechanisms at the atomic scale are dictated by protein-lipid interaction strength, lipid composition, lipid distribution in the vicinity of the…
Intracellular protein patterns regulate a variety of vital cellular processes such as cell division and motility, which often involve dynamic changes of cell shape. These changes in cell shape may in turn affect the dynamics of…
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…
Membrane bending is an extensively studied problem from both modeling and experimental perspectives because of the wide implications of curvature generation in cell biology. Many of the curvature generating aspects in membranes can be…
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…
BAR superfamily proteins have a banana-shaped domain that causes the local bending of lipid membranes. We study as to how such a local anisotropic curvature induces effective interaction between proteins and changes the global shape of…
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…
Changes in the geometry and topology of self-assembled membranes underlie diverse processes across cellular biology and engineering. Similar to lipid bilayers, monolayer colloidal membranes have in-plane fluid-like dynamics and out-of-plane…
The membrane tubulation induced by banana-shaped protein rods is investigated by using coarse-grained meshless membrane simulations. It is found that the tubulation is promoted by laterally isotropic membrane inclusions that generate the…
Unravelling the physical mechanisms behind the organisation of lipid domains is a central goal in cell biology and membrane biophysics. Previous studies on cells and model lipid bilayers featuring phase-separated domains found an intricate…
Cellular membranes are a heterogeneous mix of lipids, proteins and small molecules. Special groupings of saturated lipids and cholesterol form a liquid-ordered phase, known as `lipid rafts,' serving as platforms for signaling, trafficking…
Cell membranes interact with a myriad of curvature-active proteins that control membrane morphology and are responsible for mechanosensation and mechanotransduction. Some of these proteins, such as those containing BAR domains, are curved…
Membrane tubes (spicules) arise in cells, or artificial membranes, in the nonlinear deformation regime due to, e.g. the growth of microtubules, actin filaments or sickle hemoglobin fibers towards a membrane. We calculate the axial force…