Related papers: Probing lipid membrane bending mechanics using gol…
We numerically investigate the hydrodynamics and membrane dynamics of multicomponent vesicles in two strongly confined geometries. This serves as a simplified model for red blood cells undergoing large deformations while traversing narrow…
We report a high energy-resolution neutron backscattering study, combined with in-situ diffraction, to investigate slow molecular motions on nanosecond time scales in the fluid phase of phospholipid bilayers of…
We examine the budding of a nanoscale particle through a lipid bilayer using molecular dynamics simulations, free energy calculations, and an elastic theory, with the aim of determining the extent to which equilibrium elasticity theory can…
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) physisorbed on a Au(111) surface can be picked up, lifted at one end, and made slide by means of the tip of an atomic-force microscope. The dynamical transition from smooth sliding to multiple stick-slip regimes,…
Lipid membranes are abundant in living organisms, where they constitute a surrounding shell for cells and their organelles. There are many circumstances in which the deformations of lipid membranes are involved in living cells: fusion and…
We investigate the properties of membranes under tension by Monte-Carlo simulations of a generic coarse-grained model for lipid bilayers. We give a comprising overview of the behavior of several membrane characteristics, such as the area…
The interaction potential between supported floating bilayers has been determined by grazing incidence specular and off-specular scattering using synchrotron radiation. Our measurements demonstrate that floating bilayers are significantly…
The translocation of a Lipid Binding Protein (LBP) is studied using a phenomenological coarse-grained computational model that simplifies both chain and pore geometry. We investigated via molecular dynamics the interplay between transport…
An interfacial regularized Stokeslet scheme is presented to predict the motion of solid bodies (e.g. proteins or gel-phase domains) embedded within flowing lipid bilayer membranes. The approach provides a numerical route to calculate…
Lipid bilayer membranes below their main transition have two tilt order parameters, corresponding to the two monolayers. These two tilts may be strongly coupled to membrane shape but only weakly coupled to each other. We discuss some…
Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) composed of as few as three lipid species can phase separate into small-scale lipid domains with stripes and dots patterns. These patterns have been experimentally characterized in terms of how their size…
In this paper we present the results of a large-scale numerical investigation of structural properties of a model of cell membrane, simulated as a bilayer of flexible molecules in vacuum. The study was performed by carrying out extensive…
Health concerns associated with the advent of nanotechnologies have risen sharply when it was found that particles of nanoscopic dimensions reach the cell lumina. Plasma and organelle lipid membranes, which are exposed to both the incoming…
Experiments on supported lipid bilayers featuring liquid ordered/disordered domains have shown that the spatial arrangement of the lipid domains and their chemical composition are strongly affected by the curvature of the substrate.…
Geometric and electronic properties of folded graphene nanoribbons (FGNRs) are investigated by first-principles calculations. These properties are mainly dominated by the competition or cooperation among stacking, curvature and edge…
We preset a computational study of bending models for the curvature elasticity of lipid bilayer membranes that are relevant for simulations of vesicles and red blood cells. We compute bending energy and forces on triangulated meshes and…
An arbitrary Lagrangian--Eulerian finite element method and numerical implementation for curved and deforming lipid membranes is presented here. The membrane surface is endowed with a mesh whose in-plane motion need not depend on the…
We measure diffusion of organic molecules located a few nanometers from the diamond surface. To study molecular diffusion, we perform local detection of nuclear magnetic resonance, based on single shallow Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in…
Understanding how the mechanical behavior of materials deviates at the nanoscale from the macroscopically established concepts is a key challenge of particular importance for graphene, given the complex interplay between its nanoscale…
We study lipid translocation ("flip-flop") between the leaflets of a planar lipid bilayer with transition path sampling (TPS). Rare flip-flops compete with biological machineries that actively establish asymmetric lipid compositions.…