Related papers: Membranes in Optic Nerve Models
Computation of biological processes creates great promise for everyday life and great challenges for physical scientists. Simulations of molecular dynamics appeal to biologists as a natural extension of structural biology. Once biologists…
The fluctuations of two-dimensional extended objects membranes is a rich and exciting field with many solid results and a wide range of open issues. We review the distinct universality classes of membranes, determined by the local order,…
We present a novel buckling instability relevant to membrane budding in eukaryotic cells. In this mechanism, curved filaments bind to a lipid bilayer without changing its intrinsic curvature. As more and more filaments adsorb, newly added…
The behavior of lipid bilayer is important to understand the functionality of cells like the trafficking of ions between cells. Standard procedures to explore the properties of lipid bilayer and hemifused states typically use either…
Cells and cellular organelles are encapsulated by nanometrically thin membranes whose main component is a lipid bilayer. In the presence of electric fields, the ion-impermeable lipid bilayer acts as a capacitor and supports a potential…
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…
Ion transport in biological tissues is crucial in the study of many biological and pathological problems. Some multi-cellular structures, like smooth muscles on the vessel walls, could be treated as periodic bi-domain structures, which…
There are many processes in cell biology that can be modeled in terms of particles diffusing in a two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) bounded domain $\Omega \subset \R^d$ containing a set of small subdomains or interior…
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…
A phenomenological Landau elasticity for the shape, dilation, and lipid-tilt of bilayer membranes is developed. The shape mode couples with the sum of the monolayers' tilt, while the dilation mode couples with the difference of the…
Contrary to existing theoretical models, experimental evidence points out that electroporation (membrane defect formation under external electric fields) starts to occur within the range of transmembrane voltages that cells may routinely…
In experiments on model membranes, a formation of large domains of different lipid composition is readily observed. However, no such phase separation is observed in the membranes of intact cells. Instead, a structure of small transient…
Within the framework of the well-known curvature models, a fluid lipid bilayer membrane is regarded as a surface embedded in the three-dimensional Euclidean space whose equilibrium shapes are described in terms of its mean and Gaussian…
Statistical ensembles of flexible two-dimensional fluid membranes arise naturally in the description of many physical systems. Typically one encounters such systems in a regime of low tension but high stiffness against bending, which is…
Computer simulations of coarse-grained molecular models for amphiphilic systems can provide insight into the the structure of amphiphiles at interfaces. They can help to identify the factors that determine the phase behavior, and they can…
This paper attempts to review our studies on the propagation of signals in nerves over the past decade. The need for interdisciplinary studies is stressed that helps to understand the physical mechanisms of coupling the electrical,…
A major part of membrane function is conducted by proteins, both integral and peripheral. Peripheral membrane proteins temporarily adhere to biological membranes, either to the lipid bilayer or to integral membrane proteins with…
The interplay of membrane proteins is vital for many biological processes, such as cellular transport, cell division, and signal transduction between nerve cells. Theoretical considerations have led to the idea that the membrane itself…
Despite decades of extensive research, the large-scale analysis of membrane proteins remains a difficult task. This is due to the fact that membrane proteins require a carefully balanced hydrophilic and lipophilic environment, which optimum…
Viscosity is a key property of cell membranes that controls mobility of embedded proteins and membrane remodeling. Measuring it is challenging because existing approaches involve complex experimental designs and/or models, and the…