Inclusions in biological membranes may interact via deformations they induce on the shape of that very membrane. Such deformations are a purely physical effect, resulting in nonspecific forces between the inclusions. In this Letter we show that this type of interaction can organize membrane domains and hence may play an important biological role. Using a simple analytical model we predict that membrane inclusions sort according to the curvature they impose. We verify this prediction by both numerical simulations and experimental observations of membrane domains in phase separated vesicles.

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The ternary system consisting of cholesterol, a saturated lipid, and an unsaturated one exhibits a rich phase behavior with multiple phase coexistence regimes. Remarkably, phase separation even occurs when each of the three binary systems consisting of two of these components is a uniform mixture. We use a Flory-Huggins like model in which the phase separation of the ternary system is a consequence of an interaction between all three components to describe the system. From the associated Gibbs free energy we calculate phase diagrams, spinodals, and critical points. Moreover, we use a Van der Waals/Cahn-Hilliard like construction to derive an expression for the line tension between coexisting phases. We show how the line tension depends on the position in the phase diagram, and give an explicit expression for the concentration profile at the phase boundary.@en

Cell membrane organization is the result of the collective effect of many driving forces. Several of these, such as electrostatic and van der Waals forces, have been identified and studied in detail. In this article, we investigate and quantify another force, the interaction between inclusions via deformations of the membrane shape. For electrically neutral systems, this interaction is the dominant organizing force. As a model system to study membrane-mediated interactions, we use phase-separated biomimetic vesicles that exhibit coexistence of liquid-ordered and liquid-disordered lipid domains. The membrane-mediated interactions between these domains lead to a rich variety of effects, including the creation of long-range order and the setting of a preferred domain size. Our findings also apply to the interaction of membrane protein patches, which induce similar membrane shape deformations and hence experience similar interactions.

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Heterogeneities in the cell membrane due to coexisting lipid phases have been conjectured to play a major functional role in cell signaling and membrane trafficking. Thereby the material properties of multiphase systems, such as the line tension and the bending moduli, are crucially involved in the kinetics and the asymptotic behavior of phase separation. In this Letter we present a combined analytical and experimental approach to determine the properties of phase-separated vesicle systems. First we develop an analytical model for the vesicle shape of weakly budded biphasic vesicles. Subsequently experimental data on vesicle shape and membrane fluctuations are taken and compared to the model. The parameters obtained set limits for the size and stability of nanodomains in the plasma membrane of living cells.

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In cells, membrane tubes are extracted by molecular motors. Although individual motors cannot provide enough force to pull a tube, clusters of such motors can. Here, we investigate, using a minimal in vitro model system, how the tube pulling process depends on fundamental properties of the motor species involved. Previously, it has been shown that processive motors can pull tubes by dynamic association at the tube tip. We demonstrate that, remarkably, nonprocessive motors can also cooperatively extract tubes. Moreover, the tubes pulled by nonprocessive motors exhibit rich dynamics as compared to those pulled by their processive counterparts. We report distinct phases of persistent growth, retraction, and an intermediate regime characterized by highly dynamic switching between the two. We interpret the different phases in the context of a single-species model. The model assumes only a simple motor clustering mechanism along the length of the entire tube and the presence of a length-dependent tube tension. The resulting dynamic distribution of motor clusters acts as both a velocity and distance regulator for the tube. We show the switching phase to be an attractor of the dynamics of this model, suggesting that the switching observed experimentally is a robust characteristic of nonprocessive motors. A similar system could regulate in vivo biological membrane networks.@en