Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 21: Poster IIIb
BP 21.23: Poster
Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 11:00–14:30, Poster C
Length Scale Selection Through Mechano-Chemical Coupling — •Antonia Winter1, Yuhao Liu1, Alexander Ziepke1, George Dadunashvili1, and Erwin Frey1,2 — 1Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoSciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstraße 37, 80333 Munich, Germany — 2Max Planck School Matter to Life, Hofgartenstraße 8, 80539 München, Germany
The formation of spatial and temporal patterns is an essential part of being a living organism. Control of the length scales of patterns is a key aspect of the robust and reproducible biological function of the organisms, which leads to the question of how this pattern length scale can be controlled. One possible mechanism is mechano-chemical coupling between curvature-inducing proteins and the deformation of membranes. We investigate a minimal system combining geometric membrane-mediated coupling and protein-protein interactions. In our theoretical framework, the dynamics of proteins are characterized by a Flory-Huggins energy capturing their interactions on a membrane manifold, while the fluid-elastic membrane is described by a Canham-Helfrich energy wherein proteins induce spontaneous curvature of the membrane. As a result, we obtain three different phases: A fully phase-separated system, a spatially homogenous regime, where the geometry suppresses the protein aggregation, and an interrupted coarsening regime, where the length scale of the resulting pattern is determined by the balance between the cost of protein mixing and the membrane curvature in the free energy.
Keywords: membrane-mediated interaction; pattern formation; interrupted coarsening; Flory-Huggins free energy; Canham-Helfrich free energy