Dresden 2006 – scientific programme
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AKB: Biologische Physik
AKB 4: Membranes: Phase Behavior and Dynamics
AKB 4.3: Talk
Monday, March 27, 2006, 12:30–12:45, ZEU 260
Alternative mechanisms of structuring biomembranes — •Markus Bär 1 and Karin John2 — 1Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Abbestr. 2-12, 10587 Berlin — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Noethnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden
Cell membranes are composed of a mixture of lipids. Many biological processes re-quire the formation of spatial domains in the lipid distribution of the plasma membrane. In a first step, we study two mechanisms for the formation of protein patterns near membranes of living cells by mathematical modelling. Self-assembly of protein domains by electrostatic lipid-protein interactions is contrasted with self-organization due to a nonequilibrium biochemical reaction cycle of proteins near the membrane. While both processes lead eventually to quite similar patterns, their evolution occurs on very different length and time scales. Self-assembly produces periodic protein patterns on a spatial scale below 0.1 µm in a few seconds followed by extremely slow coarsening, whereas self-organization results in a pattern wavelength comparable to the typical cell size of 100 µm within a few minutes [1].
[1] K. John and M. Bär, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 198101 (2005).