Membrane viscosity effects on the dynamics of vesicles

POSTER

Abstract

Lipid bilayers are the main structural component of cell membranes. The nanometrically thin bilayer behaves as a two-dimensional fluid and its shear viscosity controls the transport of embedded biomolecules and membrane deformations. In this study, we investigate the effect of membrane viscosity on dynamics of giant vesicles (closed membrane sacs). We show that membrane viscosity affects the thermally-driven shape fluctuations, especially the low-wavenumber modes. We develop a theoretical model based on the Seifert-Langer formulation and we apply it to analyze the time-correlations of the shape modes. The surface viscosity effect on the dynamic structure factor of membranes will also be discussed.

*P.M.V and H.A.F acknowledge financial support by NIGMS award 1R01GM140461. This research was also supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF PHY-1748958.

Presenters

  • Petia Vlahovska

    • Northwestern University

Authors

  • Petia Vlahovska

    • Northwestern University

  • Rony Granek

    • The Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Dept. of Biotechnology Engineering and The Ilse Katz Institute for Meso and Nanoscale Science and Tech, Ben-Gurion University of The Negev
    • Ben-Gurion University of The Negev, Israel

  • Hammad Faizi

    • Northwestern University

  • Rumiana Dimova

    • Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany
    • Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces