Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 19: Membranes and Vesicles

BP 19.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 10:30–10:45, H43

Effective attraction of curved inclusions in membranes — •Thorsten Auth and Gerhard Gompper — Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institut für Festkörperforschung, 52425 Jülich, Germany

Conical inclusions in a lipid bilayer generate an overall spontaneous curvature of the membrane that depends on concentration and geometry of the inclusions. Examples are integral and attached membrane proteins, viruses, and lipid domains. We propose an analytical model to study budding and vesiculation of the lipid bilayer membrane, which is based on the membrane bending energy and the translational entropy of the inclusions. If the inclusions are placed on a membrane with similar curvature radius, their repulsive membrane-mediated interaction is screened. Therefore, for high inclusion density the inclusions aggregate, induce bud formation, and finally vesiculation. Already with the bending energy alone our model allows the prediction of bud radii. However, in case the inclusions induce a single large vesicle to split into two smaller vesicles, bending energy alone predicts that the smaller vesicles have different sizes whereas the translational entropy favors the formation of equal-sized vesicles.