Related papers: Fission of a multiphase membrane tube
Lipid vesicles composed of a mixture of two types of lipids are studied by intensive Monte-Carlo numerical simulations. The coupling between the local composition and the membrane shape is induced by two different spontaneous curvatures of…
The dynamic behavior of microtubules in solution can be strongly modified by interactions with walls or other structures. We examine here a microtubule growth model where the increase in size of the plus-end is perturbed by collisions with…
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…
The lateral diffusion of lipids within membrane is of paramount importance, serving as a central mechanism in numerous physiological processes including cell signaling, membrane trafficking, protein activity regulation, and energy…
In eukaryotic cells, mitochondria form networks that range from highly fused interconnected structures to fragmented populations of individual organelles that undergo transient interactions. These structures can be described as temporal…
Endocytosis is an essential process by which cells internalize a piece of plasma membrane and material from the outside. In cells with turgor, pressure opposes membrane defor- mations, and increases the amount of force that has to be…
The spatio-temporal organization of proteins and the associated morphological changes in membranes are of importance in cell signaling. Several mechanisms that promote the aggregation of proteins at low cell surface concentrations have been…
The structural integrity of microtubules is paramount for cellular function. We present a theoretical analysis of their lattice fracture, focusing on the influence of multi-seam structures arising from monomer defects and aiming to provide…
We study theoretically the shapes of biological tubes affected by various pathologies. When epithelial cells grow at an uncontrolled rate, the negative tension produced by their division provokes a buckling instability. Several shapes are…
We analyze the stability of micro-domains of ligand-receptor bonds that mediate the adhesion of biological model membranes. After evaluating the effects of membrane fluctuations on the binding affinity of a single bond, we characterize the…
It is well known that lipid membranes respond to a threshold transmembrane electric field through a reversible mechanism called electroporation, where hydrophilic water pores form across the membrane, an effect widely used in biological…
Curvature-inducing proteins containing a Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs domain often have intrinsically disordered domains. Recent experiments have shown that these disordered chains enhance curvature sensing and generation. Here, we report on the…
We study the deformation of a lipid membrane in response to a local pH modification. Experimentally, a basic solution is microinjected close to a giant unilamellar vesicle. A local deformation appears in the zone of the membrane that is…
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,…
The extraction of membrane tubes by molecular motors is known to play an important role for the transport properties of eukaryotic cells. By studying a generic class of models for the tube extraction, we discover a rich phase diagram. In…
The eukaryotic cell membrane is connected to a dense actin rich cortex. We present FCS and STED experiments showing that dense membrane bound actin networks have severe influence on lipid phase separation. A minimal actin cortex was bound…
We consider a model of bilayer lipid membrane with interdigitation, in which the lipid tails of the opposite monolayers interpenetrate. The interdigitation is modeled by linking tails of the hydrophobic chains in the opposite monolayers…
Tension in lipid membranes is often controlled externally, by pulling on the boundary of the membrane or changing osmotic pressure across a curved membrane. But modifications of the tension can also be induced in an internal fashion, for…
We examine the budding of a nanoscale particle through a lipid bilayer using molecular dynamics simulations, free energy calculations, and an elastic theory, with the aim of determining the extent to which equilibrium elasticity theory can…
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…