Related papers: The elastic capacitor and its unusual properties
In this article we review the present knowledge on the elastic properties of membranes of biological origin. Assuming the fluid mosaic hypothesis, we consider the phospholipid bilayer as the structural base of a biological membrane. We…
We present a model for the efficient simulation of generic bilayer membranes. Individual lipids are represented by one head- and two tail-beads. By means of simple pair potentials these robustly self-assemble to a fluid bilayer state over a…
A new model for the interaction of an electric pulse with a lipid membrane is proposed. Using this model we show that when a DC electric pulse is applied to an insulating lipid membrane separating fluids with different conductivities, the…
The plasma membrane of human red blood cells consists of a lipid bilayer attached to a regular network of underlying cytoskeletal polymers. We model this system at a dynamic coarse-grained level, treating the bilayer as an elastic sheet and…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
Dielectric elastomers are an emerging class of highly deformable electro-active materials employed for electromechanical transduction technology. For practical applications, the design of such transducers requires a model accounting for…
The electric field of biological membranes has long been treated as a one-dimensional quantity, defined solely by the component normal to the bilayer (E_VERT). Here, we present a bioelectronic platform that enables controlled generation of…
We propose a protocol to model accurately the electromechanical behavior of dielectric elastomer membranes using experimental data of stress-stretch and voltage-stretch tests. We show how the relationship between electric displacement and…
Understanding interactions between membranes requires measurements on well-controlled systems close to natural conditions, in which fluctuations play an important role. We have determined, by grazing incidence X-ray scattering, the…
Impedance Spectroscopy resolves electrical properties into uncorrelated variables, as a function of frequency, with exquisite resolution. Separation is robust and most useful when the system is linear. Impedance spectroscopy combined with…
This article concludes a three-part series developing a self-consistent theoretical framework of the electromechanics of lipid membranes at the continuum scale. Owing to their small thickness, lipid membranes are commonly modeled as…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
The purpose of this paper is to study the shapes and stabilities of bio-membranes within the framework of exterior differential forms. After a brief review of the current status in theoretical and experimental studies on the shapes of…
Experimentally measuring the elastic properties of thin biological surfaces is non-trivial, particularly when they are curved. One technique that may be used is the indentation of a thin sheet of material by a rigid indenter, whilst…
Viscosity is a key property of cell membranes that controls mobility of embedded proteins and membrane remodeling. Measuring it is challenging because existing approaches involve complex experimental designs and/or models, and the…
We discuss the role coarse-grained models play in the investigation of the structure and thermodynamics of bilayer membranes, and we place them in the context of alternative approaches. Because they reduce the degrees of freedom and employ…
The electrical double layer (EDL) at aqueous solution-metal oxide interfaces critically affects many fundamental processes in electrochemistry, geology and biology, yet understanding its microscopic structure is challenging for both theory…
Understanding how electric fields destabilize biological membranes is important for electroporation-based technologies and bioelectronic interfaces. However, theoretical descriptions of this phenomenon remain fragmented. Existing theories…
Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) are known to play an important role in the communication between distant cells and to deliver biological information throughout the body. To date, many studies have focused on the role of sEVs…