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Modeling Membrane-Protein Interactions

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Submitted:

04 September 2018

Posted:

04 September 2018

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Abstract
In order to alter and adjust the shape of the membrane, cells harness various mechanisms of curvature generation. Many of these curvature generation mechanisms rely on the interactions between peripheral membrane proteins, integral membrane proteins, and lipids in the bilayer membrane. One of the challenges in modeling these processes is identifying the suitable constitutive relationships that describe the membrane free energy that includes protein distribution and curvature generation capability. Here, we review some of the commonly used continuum elastic membrane models that have been developed for this purpose and discuss their applications. Finally, we address some fundamental challenges that future theoretical methods need to overcome in order to push the boundaries of current model applications.
Keywords: 
plasma membrane; spontaneous curvature; Helfrich energy; area difference elastic model; protein crowding; Deviatoric curvature
Subject: 
Physical Sciences  -   Applied Physics
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.

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