Related papers: Membrane fluctuations around inclusions
Whether live cell membranes show miscibility phase transitions (MPTs), and if so, how they fluctuate near the transitions remain outstanding unresolved issues in physics and biology alike. Motivated by these questions we construct a generic…
A theoretical model of a two-component fluid membrane containing lipids and two-state active inclusions is presented. Under strong inclusion activities the membrane can be unstable due to pump-driven undulation or aggregation of high…
Fluctuation spectra of fluid compound membrane systems are calculated. The systems addressed contain two (or more) almost parallel membranes that are connected by harmonic tethers or by a continuous, harmonic confining potential.…
The role of thermal pressure fluctuations in the ejection of tightly packaged DNA from protein capsid shells is discussed in a model calculation. At equilibrium before ejection we assume the DNA is folded many times into a bundle of…
We explore how thermal fluctuations affect the mechanics of thin amorphous spherical shells. In flat membranes with a shear modulus, thermal fluctuations increase the bending rigidity and reduce the in-plane elastic moduli in a…
We use scaling arguments and coarse grained Monte Carlo simulations to study the fluctuation mediated interactions between a pair of adhesion sites of a bilayer membrane and a supporting surface. We find that the potential of mean force is…
Motivated by the still ongoing debate about the various possible meanings of the term surface tension of bilayer membranes, we present here a detailed discussion that explains the differences between the "intrinsic", "renormalized", and…
In hydrodynamic descriptions of lipid bilayers, the membrane is often approximated as being impermeable to the surrounding, solute-containing fluid. However, biological and in vitro lipid membranes are influenced by their permeability and…
Transport of molecules across membrane channels is investigated theoretically using exactly solvable one-dimensional discrete-state stochastic models. An interaction between molecules and membrane pores is modeled via a set of binding sites…
A coupling of structural and thermodynamic fluctuations in the course of various-type insertion processes is investigated within a combination of Gibbsian statistics and the information theory approach. It is shown that the coupling makes…
The role of thermal pressure fluctuation excited within tightly packaged DNA prior to ejection from protein capsid shells is discussed in a model calculation. At equilibrium before ejection we assume the DNA is folded many times into a…
We investigate the effect of an applied electric potential on the mechanics of a coarse grained POPC bilayer under tension. The size and duration of our simulations allow for a detailed and accurate study of the fluctuations. Effects on the…
We propose a methodology to measure the mechanical properties of membranes from their fluctuations and apply this to optical microscopy measurements of giant unilamellar vesicles of lipids. We analyze the effect of the projection of thermal…
In an adiabatically shielded system the total enthalpy is conserved. Enthalpy fluctuations of an arbitrarily chosen subsystem must be buffered by the remainder of the total system which serves as a heat reservoir. The magnitude of these…
We consider directed semiflexible polymers embedded in a fluctuating surface which is governed by either surface tension or bending rigidity. The attractive interactions induced by the fluctuations of the surface reduce the rigidity of the…
Particles embedded in a fluctuating interface experience forces and torques mediated by the deformations and by the thermal fluctuations of the medium. Considering a system of two cylinders bound to a fluid membrane we show that the…
A weak correlation between the diffusion-exponent fluctuations and the temperature fluctuations is discussed based on recent experimental observations for protein diffusion inside bacteria. Its existence is shown to be essential for…
Force fluctuations in granular materials are investigated. A continuum equation is derived starting from a discrete model proposed in the literature. The influence of boundary conditions is investigated. For periodic boundary conditions the…
The transport of individual entities through interconnected structures is a process of practical relevance both in biology and technology. Examples are given by diffusive dynamics of molecules in porous structures. In soft environments,…
Most spherical viruses exhibit icosahedral symmetry, yet the growth of viral shells remains poorly understood due to the short lifetimes and broad size distribution of assembly intermediates. Classical nucleation theory has been widely…