Related papers: Fluid-membrane tethers: minimal surfaces and elast…
Many lipid membrane-mediated transport processes--such as mechanically-gated channel activation and solute transport--involve structural and dynamical features on membrane thickness length scales. Most existing membrane models, however,…
Through mechanical forces, biological cells remodel the surrounding collagen network, generating striking deformation patterns. Tethers-tracts of high densification and fiber alignment-form between cells, thinner bands emanate from cell…
A model system has been recently developed to study adhesion. It consists of a giant lipid bilayer vesicle with reconstituted lipo-polymers (repellers) as well as with lipo-ligands recognized by receptors covering the substrate. Adhesion in…
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…
Soft membranes are commonly employed in shape-morphing applications, where the material is programmed to achieve a target shape upon activation by an external trigger, and as coating layers that alter the surface characteristics of bulk…
After a brief introduction to several variational problems in the study of shapes of thin thickness structures, we deal with variational problems on 2-dimensional surface in 3-dimensional Euclidian space by using exterior differential…
The equilibrium properties of block copolymer micelles confined in polymer thin films are investigated using self-consistent field theory. The theory is based on a model system consisting of AB diblock copolymers and A homopolymers. Two…
Motivated by recent experimental work on multicomponent lipid membranes supported by colloidal scaffolds, we report an exhaustive theoretical investigation of the equilibrium configurations of binary mixtures on curved substrates. Starting…
Using an interface displacement model derived from a microscopic density functional theory we investigate thin liquidlike wetting layers adsorbed on flat substrates with an embedded chemical heterogeneity forming a stripe. For a wide range…
Many objects in nature and industry are wrapped in a thin sheet to enhance their chemical, mechanical, or optical properties. There are similarly a variety of methods for wrapping, from pressing a film onto a hard substrate, to using…
We study the wetting of a thin elastic filament floating on a fluid surface by a droplet of another, immiscible fluid. This quasi-2D experimental system is the lower-dimensional counterpart of the wetting and wrapping of a droplet by an…
This review reports some key results in theoretical investigations on configurations of lipid membranes and presents several challenges in this field which involve (i) exact solutions to the shape equation of lipid vesicles; (ii) exact…
Two cylinders rotating next to each other generate a large hydrodynamic force if the intermediate space is filled with a viscous fluid. Herein, we explore the case where the cylinders are separated by two layers of viscous immiscible…
The motion of an object within a viscous fluid and in the vicinity of a soft surface induces a hydrodynamic stress field that deforms the latter, thus modifying the boundary conditions of the flow. This results in elastohydrodynamic (EHD)…
In recent years, there has been a considerable interest in the mechanics of soft objects meeting fluid interfaces (elasto-capillary interactions). In this work we experimentally examine the case of a fluid resting on a thin film of rigid…
We present a simple, and physically motivated, coarse-grained model of a lipid bilayer, suited for micron scale computer simulations. Each ~25 nm^2 patch of bilayer is represented by a spherical particle. Mimicking forces of hydrophobic…
Cell plasma membranes display a dramatically rich structural complexity characterized by functional sub-wavelength domains with specific lipid and protein composition. Under favorable experimental conditions, patterned morphologies can also…
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…
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…
Thermal fluctuations in cell membranes manifest as an excess area (${\cal A}_{\rm ex}$) which governs a multitude of physical process at the sub-micron scale. We present a theoretical framework, based on an in silico tether pulling method,…