27–30 May 2015
Mariehamn, Åland
Europe/Stockholm timezone

Tension control of domain nucleation in lipid bilayers

27 May 2015, 17:30
30m
Conference room (Ferry)

Conference room

Ferry

Speaker

Michael A Lomholt (MEMPHYS - Center for Biomembrane Physics, University of Southern Denmark)

Description

When lipid molecules in a bilayer freeze they tend to lower the area that they occupy in the membrane. Thus during the nucleation process of a solid domain of lipids the nucleating domain will have to pull against the local tension in the bilayer, an effect that will lower the rate at which these domains nucleate. In this talk I will present a model of domain nucleation and growth, which explains how the dynamics of the tension via this effect can determine the distribution of nucleation points observed in experiments on supported lipid bilayers. The friction between the bilayer and the support plays an important role in this model, by slowing down the relaxation of locally increased tension.

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