Related papers: Curvature effects in charge-regulated lipid bilaye…
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…
We study a dynamical curvature instability caused by a local chemical modification of a phospholipid membrane. In our experiments, a basic solution is microinjected close to a giant unilamellar vesicle, which induces a local chemical…
When solid surfaces are immersed in aqueous solutions, some of their charges can dissociate and leave behind charge patches on the surface. Although the charges are distributed heterogeneously on the surface, most of the theoretical models…
Many proteins and peptides have an intrinsic capacity to sense and induce membrane curvature, and play crucial roles for organizing and remodelling cell membranes. However, the molecular driving forces behind these processes are not well…
We introduce a microscopic model of a lipid with a charged headgroup and flexible hydrophobic tails, a neutral solvent, and counter ions. Short-ranged interactions between hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties are included as are the Coulomb…
We review recent computer simulation studies of undulating lipid bilayers. Theoretical interpretations of such fluctuating membranes are most commonly based on generalized Helfrich-type elastic models, with additional contributions of local…
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,…
An ubiquitous property of plasmas is the so-called Debye shielding of the electrostatic potential. Important aspects of Debye screening concern, in particular, the investigation of non-linear charge screening effects taking place in…
Biomembranes are thin capacitors with the unique feature of displaying phase transitions in a physiologically relevant regime. We investigate the voltage and lateral pressure dependence of their capacitance close to their chain melting…
We study a model of a lipid bilayer membrane described by two order parameters: the chemical composition described using the Gaussian model and the spatial configuration described with the elastic deformation model of a membrane with a…
It is well known that lipid membranes respond to a threshold transmembrane electric field through a reversible mechanism called electroporation, where hydrophilic water pores form across the membrane, an effect widely used in biological…
The Canham--Helfrich free-energy density for a lipid bilayer has drawn considerable attention. Aside from the mean and Gaussian curvatures, this free-energy density involves a spontaneous mean-curvature that encompasses information…
Tissue fluidity regulates many critical biological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. In confluent epithelia, where cell packing fraction is effectively fixed, the prevailing paradigm…
We investigate how an externally imposed curvature influences lipid segregation on two-phase-coexistent membranes. We show that the bending-modulus contrast of the two phases and the curvature act together to yield a reduced effective line…
Lipid-bilayers are the fundamental constituents of the walls of most living cells and lipid vesicles, giving them shape and compartment. The formation and growing of pores in a lipid bilayer have attracted considerable attention from an…
Lipid bilayer membranes are not uniform and clusters of lipids in a more ordered state exist within the generally disorder lipid milieu of the membrane. These clusters of ordered lipids microdomains are now referred to as lipid rafts.…
Curvature in biological membranes can be generated by a variety of different molecular mechanisms such as protein scaffolding, lipid or protein asymmetry, cytoskeletal forces, etc. These mechanisms have the net effect of generating stresses…
We present a theory for the equilibrium structure of polyelectrolyte solutions. The main element is a simple, new optimization scheme that allows theories such as the random phase approximation (RPA) to handle the harsh repulsive forces…
The consequences of source charge and surface modulation are studied within the framework of the Poisson-Boltzmann theory of electrolyte solutions. Through a consideration of various examples, it is found that inherent modulation can lead…
We investigate the microphase separation in a membrane composed of charged lipid, by taking into account explicitly the electrostatic potential and the ion densities in the surrounding solvent. While the overall (membrane and solvent)…