Related papers: Lipid exchange promotes fusion of model protocells
Lipid bilayer membranes are the fundamental biological barriers that permit life. The bilayer dynamics largely participates in orchestrating cellular workings and is characterized by substantial stability together with extreme plasticity…
A common mechanism for intracellular transport is the use of controlled deformations of the membrane to create spherical or tubular buds. While the basic physical properties of homogeneous membranes are relatively well-known, the effects of…
In addressing the origins of Darwinian evolution, recent experimental work has been focussed on the discovery of simple physical effects which would provide a relevant selective advantage to protocells competing with each other for a…
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…
This paper studies the fusogenicity of cationic liposomes in relation to their surface distribution of cationic lipids and utilizes membrane phase separation to control this surface distribution. It is found that concentrating the cationic…
Cells offer numerous inspiring examples where proteins and membranes combine to form complex structures that are key to intracellular compartmentalization, cargo transport, and specialization of cell morphology. Despite this wealth of…
We propose a mechanism with a low activation energy for lipid translocation, based on a change of topology of the membrane of a protocell. The inner and outer layers are connected and form toroidal nanoholes stabilised by repulsive…
Water-phospholipid interactions at the lipid bilayer/water interfaces are of essential importance for the dynamics, stability and function of biological membrane, and are also strongly associated with numerous biological processes at the…
Lipid rafts are heterogeneous dynamic lipid domains of the cell membranes that are involved in several biological processes, like protein and lipids specific transport and signaling. Our understanding of lipid raft formation is still…
We investigate the steady states and dynamical instabilities resulting from ``particles'' depositing on (fusion) and pinching off (fission) a fluid membrane. These particles could be either small lipid vesicles or isolated proteins. In the…
How internal forces are transduced into motion through soft, fluid membranes remains a fundamental question in the study of active systems. To investigate this coupling, we develop a minimal system consisting of a single ferromagnetic…
The study of interactions between biomimetic membranes and micron-sized particles is crucial for understanding various biological processes. Here, we control microparticle spontaneous engulfment by giant lipid vesicles by tuning particle…
Lipid membranes form the barrier between the inside and outside of cells and many of their subcompartments. As such, they bind to a wide variety of nano- and micrometer sized objects and, in the presence of strong adhesive forces, strongly…
Tissue fusion eliminates physical voids in a tissue to form a continuous structure and is central to many processes in development and repair. Fusion events in vivo, particularly in embryonic development, often involve the purse-string…
Understanding dynamic and complex interaction of biological membranes with extracellular matrices plays a crucial role in controlling a variety of cell behavior and functions, from cell adhesion and growth to signaling and differentiation.…
Fluid membranes made out of lipid bilayers are the fundamental separation structure in eukaryotic cells. Many physiological processes rely on dramatic shape and topological changes (e.g. fusion, fission) of fluid membrane systems. Fluidity…
Models for confluent biological tissues often describe the network formed by cells as a triple-junction network, similar to foams. However, higher order vertices or multicellular rosettes are prevalent in developmental and {\it in vitro}…
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…
Fusion of lipid bilayers in membranes is important in processes from vesicle-cell interactions (as in drug delivery) to exosome-cell signaling, while transient transmembrane electric fields are known to occur spontaneously. Two contacting…
We have carried out Monte Carlo simulation of the fusion of bilayers of single chain amphiphiles which show phase behavior similar to that of biological lipids. The fusion mechanism we observe is very different from the ``stalk''…