Role of disclinations in determining the morphology of deformable fluid interfaces

Abstract

We study the equilibrium shapes of vesicles, with an in-plane nematic order, using a Monte-Carlo scheme and show that highly curved shapes, like tubes and discs, with a striking similarity to the structures engendered by certain curvature sensing peripheral membrane proteins, can be spontaneously generated by anisotropic directional curvature with nematic disclinations playing and important role. We show that the coupling between nematic order and local curvature could lead to like defects moving towards each other and unlike defects moving away, in turn leading to tube formation. Thermally induced defect pair production lead to branched tubular structures. It is also shown that helical arrangement of the membrane tubes, with nematic field spiraling around it, is a dominant soft mode of the system.

arXiv comment6 Figures; Soft Matter, Advance Article 2012

References in corpus (7)

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• Towards a Tetravalent Chemistry of Colloids
• Nematic textures in spherical shells
• Topological Defects in Spherical Nematics
• Monte Carlo simulations of fluid vesicles with in plane orientational ordering
• Rigid Chiral Membranes
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Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Membrane tubule formation by banana-shaped proteins with or without transient network structure
• Two- or three-step assembly of banana-shaped proteins coupled with shape transformation of lipid membranes
• Formation of polyhedral vesicles and polygonal membrane tubes induced by banana-shaped proteins
• Defining the Free-Energy Landscape of Curvature-Inducing Proteins on Membrane Bilayers
• Spherical nematics with a threefold valence
• Acceleration and suppression of banana-shaped-protein-induced tubulation by addition of small membrane inclusions of isotropic spontaneous curvatures
• Shape deformation of lipid membranes by banana-shaped protein rods: Comparison with isotropic inclusions and membrane rupture
• Binding of Curvature-Inducing Proteins onto Biomembranes
• Curvature-sensing and generation by membrane proteins: a review