Why the wrinkling transition in partially polymerized membranes is not universal? Fractal-multifractal hierarchy

Sahraoui Chaieb*, Šárka Málková, Jyotsana Lal

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

When partially polymerized membranes wrinkle they exhibit a passage from a conventional buckling (due to an instability caused by chiral symmetry breaking) at low polymerization to a local roughening (due to a frustration in the local packing of the chiral molecules composing the membrane) as a function of the polymerization of the lipids aliphatic tails. This transition was found to be non-universal and here we used neutron scattering to elucidate that this behavior is due to the onset of stretching in the membrane accompanied by a bilayer thickness variation. Close to the percolation limit this deformation is plastic similar to mutated lysozymes. We draw an analogy between this transition and echinocytes in red blood cells.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)60-67
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of theoretical biology
Volume251
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 7 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Bilayers
  • Proteins folding
  • Red blood cells

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
  • Applied Mathematics

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