Revisiting the entropic force between fluctuating biological membranes

Abstract

The complex interplay between the various attractive and repulsive forces that mediate between biological membranes governs an astounding array of biological functions: cell adhesion, membrane fusion, self-assembly, binding-unbinding transition among others. In this work, the entropic repulsive force between membranes—which originates due to thermally excited fluctuations—is critically reexamined both analytically and through systematic Monte Carlo simulations. A recent work by Freund (2013) has questioned the validity of a well-accepted result derived by Helfrich (1978). We find that, in agreement with Freund, for small inter-membrane separations (d), the entropic pressure scales as p~1/d, in contrast to Helfrich's result: p~1/d3. For intermediate separations, our calculations agree with that of Helfrich and finally, for large inter-membrane separations, we observe an exponentially decaying behavior.