Membrane mediated aggregation of curvature inducing nematogens and membrane tubulation

Abstract

The shapes of cell membranes are largely regulated by membrane associated, curvature active, proteins. We use a numerical model of the membrane with elongated membrane inclusions, recently developed by us, which posses spontaneous directional curvatures that could be different along and perpendicular to its long axis. We show that, due to membrane mediated interactions these curvature inducing membrane nematogens can oligomerize spontaneously, even at low concentrations, and change the local shape of the membrane. We demonstrate that for a large group of such inclusions, where the two spontaneous curvatures have equal sign, the tubular conformation and sometime the sheet conformation of the membrane are the common equilibrium shapes. We elucidate the factors necessary for the formation of these {\it protein lattices}. Furthermore, the elastic properties of the tubes, like their compressional stiffness and persistence length are calculated. Finally, we discuss the possible role of nematic disclination in capping and branching of the tubular membranes.

15pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Defects in nematic membranes can buckle into pseudospheres
• Role of disclinations in determining the morphology of deformable fluid interfaces

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Environmental bias and elastic curves on surfaces
• Two- or three-step assembly of banana-shaped proteins coupled with shape transformation of lipid membranes
• Membrane morphologies induced by arc-shaped scaffolds are determined by arc angle and coverage
• Acceleration and suppression of banana-shaped-protein-induced tubulation by addition of small membrane inclusions of isotropic spontaneous curvatures
• Binding of anisotropic curvature-inducing proteins onto membrane tubes
• Binding of Curvature-Inducing Proteins onto Biomembranes
• Curvature-sensing and generation by membrane proteins: a review
• Curvature-driven stability of defects in nematic textures over spherical disks
• Membrane-mediated interactions
• Stability of branched tubular membrane structures
• Renormalized mechanics and stochastic thermodynamics of growing vesicles
• Curvature-induced clustering of cell adhesion proteins