Hydro-osmotic instabilities in active membrane tubes

Abstract

We study a membrane tube with unidirectional ion pumps driving an osmotic pressure difference. A pressure driven peristaltic instability is identified, qualitatively distinct from similar tension-driven Rayleigh type instabilities on membrane tubes. We discuss how this instability could be related to the function and biogenesis of membrane bound organelles, in particular the contractile vacuole complex. The unusually long natural wavelength of this instability is in agreement with that observed in cells.

5 pages, 3 figures + Supplementary information

References in corpus (3)

• Pulsatile lipid vesicles under osmotic stress
• Osmotically Driven Shape Transformations in Axons
• Pearling instability of membrane tubes driven by curved proteins and actin polymerization

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Geometry and dynamics of lipid membranes: The Scriven--Love number
• Mitochondrial cristae modeled as an out-of-equilibrium membrane driven by a proton field
• Absolute vs Convective Instabilities and Front Propagation in Lipid Membrane Tubes
• Dynamics of passive and active membrane tubes
• The irreversible thermodynamics of curved lipid membranes II: Permeability and osmosis