Related papers: Modeling membrane morphological change during auto…
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…
Cellular uptake through the lipid membranes plays an important role in adsorbing nutrients and fighting infection and can be used for drug delivery and nanomedicine developments. Endocytosis is one of the known pathways of the cellular…
We perform an analytical investigation of the cell interface dynamics in the framework of a minimal phase field model of cell motility suggested in [1], which consists of two coupled evolution equations for the order parameter and a…
Modeling the spontaneous evolution of morphology in natural systems and its preservation by proportionate growth remains a major scientific challenge. Yet, it is conceivable that if the basic mechanisms of growth and the coupled kinetic…
We investigate discrete spin transformations, a geometric framework to manipulate surface meshes by controlling mean curvature. Applications include surface fairing -- flowing a mesh onto say, a reference sphere -- and mesh extrusion --…
The instability and periodic deformation of bilayer membranes during freezing processes are studied as a function of the difference of the shape energy between the high and the low temperature membrane states. It is shown that there exists…
We report a numerical simulation of the phase diagram of a simple model for membrane proteins constrained to move in a plane. In analogy with the corresponding three dimensional models, the liquid-gas transition becomes metastable as the…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
We study the deformation of a liquid interface with arbitrary principal curvatures by a flat circular sheet. Working first at small slopes, we determine the shape of the sheet analytically in the membrane limit, where the sheet is…
Reaction-diffusion models with nonlocal constraints naturally arise as limiting cases of coupled bulk-surface models of intracellular signalling. In this paper, a minimal, mass-conserving model of cell-polarization on a curved membrane is…
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…
Shells, when confined, can deform in a broad assortment of shapes and patterns, often quite dissimilar to what is produced by their flat counterparts (plates). In this work we discuss the morphological landscape of shells deposited on a…
The growth of several biological tissues is known to be controlled in part by local geometrical features, such as the curvature of the tissue interface. This control leads to changes in tissue shape that in turn can affect the tissue's…
Cell shape is determined by a balance of intrinsic properties of the cell as well as its mechanochemical environment. Inhomogeneous shape changes underly many morphogenetic events and involve spatial gradients in active cellular forces…
From the Golgi apparatus to endosomes, organelles in the endomembrane system exhibit complex and varied morphologies that are often related to their function. Such membrane-bound organelles operate far from equilibrium due to directed…
We theoretically investigate the thermally-driven curvature and lipid density fluctuations of a quasi-spherical vesicle, accounting for the dissipation due to monolayer viscosity and intermonolayer friction. The theory predicts that…
Animal morphogenesis often involves significant shape changes of epithelial tissue sheets. Great progress has been made in understanding the underlying cellular driving forces and their coordination through biomechanical feedback loops.…
We show that the formation of membrane tubes (or membrane tethers), which is a crucial step in many biological processes, is highly non-trivial and involves first order shape transitions. The force exerted by an emerging tube is a…
Cell blebs are protrusions of the cell membrane and can be instrumental for cell migration. We derive a continuum model for the mechanical and geometrical aspects of the onset of blebbing in terms of a force balance. It is abstract and…
Biomolecular condensates are liquid- or gel-like droplets of proteins and nucleic acids formed at least in part through liquid-liquid phase separation. Condensates enable diverse functions of cells and the pathogens that infect them,…