Related papers: Surface tension in bilayer membranes with fixed pr…
Response of lipid bilayers to external mechanical stimuli is an active area of research with implications for fundamental and synthetic cell biology. However, there is a lack of tools for systematically imposing mechanical strains and…
We study the deformation of a liquid interface with arbitrary principal curvatures by a flat circular sheet. Working first at small slopes, we determine the shape of the sheet analytically in the membrane limit, where the sheet is…
Biological membranes are elastic media in which the presence of a transmembrane protein leads to local bilayer deformation. The energetics of deformation allow two membrane proteins in close proximity to influence each other's equilibrium…
Up-down asymmetric inclusions impose a local, spontaneous curvature to an elastic membrane. When several of them are inserted in a same membrane, they feel effective forces mediated by the membrane, both of elastic and entropic nature.…
This work addresses four problems in defining and computing the surface tension of vapour-liquid interfaces: (1) The apparent kinetic contribution to the surface tension, and what it is that makes it appear; (2) the problem of defining the…
We propose two toy-models to describe, predict, and interpret the wrinkles appearing on the surface of skin when it is sheared. With the first model, we account for the lines of greatest tension present in human skin by subjecting a layer…
We generalize the predictions for attractions between over-all neutral surfaces induced by charge fluctuations/correlations to non-uniform systems that include dielectric discontinuities, as is the case for mixed charged lipid membranes in…
A cell membrane can be simply regarded as composite material consisting of lipid bilayer, membrane cytoskeleton beneath lipid bilayer, and proteins embedded in lipid bilayer and linked with membrane cytoskeleton if one only concerns its…
The influence of an electric field on a poorly conductive membrane such as a lipid bilayer is studied theoretically. The unbalanced electric stress created by an ionic current across a non-perfectly flat membrane gives rise to a…
We propose a mechanism for mechanical regulation at the membrane of living cells, based on the exchange of membrane area between the cell membrane and a membrane reservoir. The reservoir is composed of invaginated membrane microdomains…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
Using molecular dynamics, this study investigates the local elastic properties of transverse shear deformation of lipid membranes. The analysis demonstrates that transverse shear deformation induces anisotropy in the local stress profile of…
Vertex Models, as used to describe cellular tissue, have an energy controlled by deviations of each cell area and perimeter from target values. The constrained nonlinear relation between area and perimeter leads to new mechanical response.…
We study the lubrication of fluid-immersed soft interfaces and show that elastic deformation couples tangential and normal forces and thus generates lift. We consider materials that deform easily, due to either geometry (e.g. a shell) or…
A novel bilayer is introduced, consisting of a stiff film adhered to a soft substrate with patterned holes beneath the film and substrate interface. To uncover the transition of surface patterns, two dimensional plane strain simulations are…
It has been known for long that the fluctuation surface tension of membranes $r$, computed from the height fluctuation spectrum, is not equal to the bare surface tension $\sigma$ introduced in the Helfrich theory. In this work we relate…
A coarse-grained molecular model, which consists of a spherical particle and an orientation vector, is proposed to simulate lipid membrane on a large length scale. The solvent is implicitly represented by an effective attractive interaction…
Many of the cell membrane vital functions are achieved by the self-organization of the proteins and biopolymers embedded in it. The protein dynamics are in part determined by its drag. A large number of these proteins can polymerize to form…
The surface tension of interacting polymers in a good solvent is calculated theoretically and by computer simulations for a planar wall geometry and for the insertion of a single colloidal hard-sphere. This is achieved for the planar wall…
Shape transformations of flat bilayer membranes and vesicles induced by hydrolysis and condensation reactions of amphiphilic molecules are studied using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. The hydrolysis and condensation…