Abstract
In recent years it has become evident that many biological functions and processes areassociated with the adoption by cellular membranes of complex geometries, at least locally.In this paper, we initially discuss the range of self-assembled structures that lipids, thebuilding blocks of biological membranes, may form, focusing specifically on the inverselyotropic phases of negative interfacial mean curvature. We describe the roles ofcurvature elasticity and packing frustration in controlling the stability of these inversephases, and the experimental determination of the spontaneous curvature and thecurvature elastic parameters. We discuss how the lyotropic phase behaviour can betuned by the addition of compounds such as long-chain alkanes, which can relievepacking frustration. The latter section of the paper elaborates further on thestructure, geometric properties, and stability of the inverse bicontinuous cubic phases.
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