2006/11/02 by Vagelis A. Harmandaris, Markus Deserno
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.2372761
7 pages, 5 figures, 1 table
arxiv created 2006/11/02 · openalex publication_date 2006/11/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The tensile force along a cylindrical lipid bilayer tube is proportional to the membrane's bending modulus and inversely proportional to the tube radius. We show that this relation, which is experimentally exploited to measure bending rigidities, can be applied with even greater ease in computer simulations. Using a coarse-grained bilayer model we efficiently obtain bending rigidities that compare very well with complementary measurements based on an analysis of thermal undulation modes. We furthermore illustrate that no deviations from simple quadratic continuum theory occur up to a radius of curvature comparable to the bilayer thickness.