Allain J-M, Storm C, Roux A, Ben Amar M, Joanny J-F
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Oct 8;93(15):158104. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.158104.
A common mechanism for intracellular transport is the use of controlled deformations of the membrane to create spherical or tubular buds. While the basic physical properties of homogeneous membranes are relatively well known, the effects of inhomogeneities within membranes are very much an active field of study. Membrane domains enriched in certain lipids, in particular, are attracting much attention, and in this Letter we investigate the effect of such domains on the shape and fate of membrane tubes. Recent experiments have demonstrated that forced lipid phase separation can trigger tube fission, and we demonstrate how this can be understood purely from the difference in elastic constants between the domains. Moreover, the proposed model predicts time scales for fission that agree well with experimental findings.
细胞内运输的一种常见机制是利用膜的可控变形来形成球形或管状芽。虽然均匀膜的基本物理性质相对较为人所知，但膜内不均匀性的影响仍是一个非常活跃的研究领域。特别是富含某些脂质的膜结构域正吸引着大量关注，在本信函中，我们研究了此类结构域对膜管形状和命运的影响。最近的实验表明，强制脂质相分离可引发管裂变，并且我们证明了如何仅从结构域之间弹性常数的差异来理解这一现象。此外，所提出的模型预测的裂变时间尺度与实验结果吻合得很好。
