Lateral Stress and Spontaneous Curvature in Mixed Membranes

Abstract

A key aspect of membrane mechanics is the balance of attractive and repulsive forces involving lipid head groups and acyl chains [1]. In particular, demethylation of PC lipids and addition of polyunsaturated chains [2] have been shown to alter substantially the activity of membrane receptors [3, 4] and of ion channels. How to best describe membrane forces? An appealing theoretical description is the lateral stress profile, which is easily calculated from computer simulations. However the lateral stress profile is not yet accessible experimentally.