Related papers: Formation and Interaction of Membrane Tubes
Biological membranes are known to form various structural motifs, from lipid bilayers to tubular filaments and networks facilitating e.g. adhesion and cell-cell communication. To understand the biophysical processes underpinning lipid-lipid…
We investigate the dynamics of membranes that are held by freely-rotating tethers in fluid flows. The tethered boundary condition allows periodic and chaotic oscillatory motions for certain parameter values. We characterize the oscillations…
Lipid membrane deformations have been predicted to lead to indirect forces between the objects that induce these deformations. Recent experimental measurements have found an attractive interaction between spherical particles that all induce…
When considering flows in biological membranes, they are usually treated as flat, though more often than not, they are curved surfaces, even extremely curved, as in the case of the endoplasmic reticulum. Here, we study the topological…
Many of the most important processes in cells take place on and across membranes. With the rise of an impressive array of powerful quantitative methods for characterizing these membranes, it is an opportune time to reflect on the structure…
Topology transcends boundaries that conventionally delineate physical, biological and engineering sciences. Our ability to mathematically describe topology, combined with our access to precision tracking and manipulation approaches, has…
A key process in the life of any multicellular organism is its development from a single egg into a full grown adult. The first step in this process often consists of forming a tissue layer out of randomly placed cells on the surface of the…
Emergence of regular spatial patterns is a hallmark in living matter ranging from subcellular organelles to developing embryos and to ecosystems. Mechanisms for the formation of ordered spatial patterns in biology often require chemical…
"Necks" are features of lipid membranes characterized by an uniquley large curvature, functioning as bridges between different compartments. These features are ubiquitous in the life-cycle of the cell and instrumental in processes such as…
Biological membranes undergo noticeable thermal fluctuations at physiological temperatures. When two membranes approach each other, they hinder the out of plane fluctuations of the other. This hindrance leads to an entropic repulsive force…
There are a great many proteins that localize to and collectively generate curvature in biological fluid membranes. We study changes in the topology of fluid membranes due to the presence of highly anisotropic, curvature-inducing proteins.…
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…
We extend earlier work on nonlinear tube wave propagation in permeable formations to study, analytically and numerically, the generation and propagation of a difference frequency, Delta omega = omega_1 - omega_2, due to an initial pulse…
Understanding interactions between microparticles and lipid membranes is of increasing importance, especially for unraveling the influence of microplastics on our health and environment. Here, we study how a short-ranged adhesive force…
During the catalytic synthesis of graphene, nanotubes, fibers, and other nanostructures, many intriguing phenomena occur, such as phase separation, precipitation, and analogs of capillary action. We demonstrate that catalytic nanoparticles…
Shear-flow-induced structure formation in surfactant-water mixtures is investigated numerically using a meshless-membrane model in combination with a particle-based hydrodynamics simulation approach for the solvent. At low shear rates,…
At high Reynolds number, the interaction between two vortex tubes leads to intense velocity gradients, which are at the heart of fluid turbulence. This vorticity amplification comes about through two different instability mechanisms of the…
We discuss the physical mechanisms that promote or suppress the nucleation of a fluid-filled lumen inside a cell assembly or a tissue. We discuss lumen formation in a continuum theory of tissue material properties in which the tissue is…
Living systems are chiral on multiple scales, from constituent biopolymers to large scale morphology, and their active mechanics is both driven by chiral components and serves to generate chiral morphologies. We describe the mechanics of…
A nematic membrane is a sheet with embedded orientational order, which can occur in biological cells, liquid crystal films, manufactured materials, and other soft matter systems. By formulating the free energy of nematic films using tensor…