Related papers: Membrane-mediated interactions
A particle placed in soft matter distorts its host and creates an energy landscape. This can occur, for example, for particles in liquid crystals, for particles on lipid bilayers or for particles trapped at fluid interfaces. Such energies…
In this paper, phase field models are developed for multi-component vesicle membranes with different lipid compositions and membranes with free boundary. These models are used to simulate the deformation of membranes under the elastic…
Inclusions dissolved in an anisotropic quasi-2D membrane acquire new types of interactions that can drive assembly of complex structures and patterns. We study colloidal membranes composed of a binary mixture of long and short rods, such…
We consider a model of a biomembrane with attached proteins. The membrane is represented by a near spherical continuous surface and attached proteins are described as discrete rigid structures which attach to the membrane at a finite number…
The interpretation electrical phenomena in biomembranes is usually based on the assumption that the experimentally found discrete ion conduction events are due to a particular class of proteins called ion channels while the lipid membrane…
Cell plasma membranes display a dramatically rich structural complexity characterized by functional sub-wavelength domains with specific lipid and protein composition. Under favorable experimental conditions, patterned morphologies can also…
Cellular uptake of nanoplastics is instrumental in their environmental accumulation and transfer to humans through the food chain. Despite extensive studies using spherical plastic nanoparticles, the influence of the morphological…
Water molecules play an important role in providing unique environments for biological reactions on cell membranes. It is widely believed that water molecules form bridges that connect lipid molecules and stabilize cell membranes. Using…
In this perspective we describe the critical role membranes play in modulating the structures of the Amyloid Precursor Proteins to produce the peptides involved in the Alzheimer's disease. Some of the key concepts related to protein…
Adhesive interactions between white blood cells and the interior surface of the blood vessels they contact is important in inflammation and in the progression of heart disease. Parallel-plate microchannels have been useful in characterizing…
Using a lattice model and a versatile thermodynamic integration scheme, we study the critical Casimir interactions between inclusions embedded in a two-dimensional critical binary mixtures. For single-domain inclusions we demonstrate that…
Over the past decade, advances in super-resolution microscopy and particle-based modeling have driven an intense interest in investigating spatial heterogeneity at the level of single molecules in cells. Remarkably, it is becoming clear…
Tension in lipid membranes is often controlled externally, by pulling on the boundary of the membrane or changing osmotic pressure across a curved membrane. But modifications of the tension can also be induced in an internal fashion, for…
Hydrophobic thickness mismatch between integral membrane proteins and the surrounding lipid bilayer can produce lipid bilayer thickness deformations. Experiment and theory have shown that protein-induced lipid bilayer thickness deformations…
The organization of live cells into tissues and their subsequent biological function involves inter-cell mechanical interactions, which are mediated by their elastic environment. To model this interaction, we consider cells as spherical…
Up-down asymmetric inclusions impose a local, spontaneous curvature to an elastic membrane. When several of them are inserted in a same membrane, they feel effective forces mediated by the membrane, both of elastic and entropic nature.…
We explore the interplay of membrane curvature and nonspecific binding due to excluded-volume effects among colloidal particles inside lipid bilayer vesicles. We trapped submicron spheres of two different sizes inside a pear-shaped,…
Advances in nanotechnology lead to an increasing interest in how nanoparticles interact with biomembranes. Nanoparticles are wrapped spontaneously by biomembranes if the adhesive interactions between the particles and membranes compensate…
There are a great many proteins that localize to and collectively generate curvature in biological fluid membranes. We study changes in the topology of fluid membranes due to the presence of highly anisotropic, curvature-inducing proteins.…
Soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions, and biological systems, are typically multicomponent mixtures of macromolecules and simpler components (e.g., microions, monomers, solvent) that can assemble into complex…