Abstract
Biological membranes have distinct geometries that confer specific functions. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the phenomenological structure/function correlations remain elusive. We studied the effect of membrane geometry on membrane-bound protein localization. Quantitative experiments with controlled spherical and cylindrical membrane geometries revealed that geometry regulates the spatial segregation of proteins. The measured geometry-driven segregation efficiency reached 50-fold, for membranes of the same mean curvature. Combining experiments with molecular-field theory calculations surprisingly demonstrated a crucial contribution from Gaussian curvature to geometry discrimination. Our calculations reveal that the underlying physical and molecular mechanisms are dominated by the exclusion volume and hydrophobic interactions. Our results propose a new biological function to membrane polymorphism and suggest why and how distinct membrane geometries can have a specific effect on cellular membrane biology.
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