Abstract
Helfrich model of membrane bending elasticity has been most influential in establishment and development of Soft-Matter Physics of lipid bilayers and biological membranes. Recently, Helfrich theory has been extensively used in Cell Biology to understand the phenomena of shaping, fusion and fission of cellular membranes. The general background of Helfrich theory on the one hand, and the ways of specifying the model parameters on the other, are important for quantitative treatment of particular biologically relevant membrane phenomena. Here we present the origin of Helfrich model within the context of the general Gibbs theory of capillary interfaces, and review the strategies of computing the membrane elastic moduli based on considering a lipid monolayer as a three-dimensional thick layer characterized by trans-monolayer profiles of elastic parameters. We present the results of original computations of these profiles by a state-of-the-art numerical approach.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 25-33 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Advances in Colloid and Interface Science |
| Volume | 208 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2014 |
Keywords
- Curvature
- Membrane elasticity
- Molecular dynamics
- Surface thermodynamics
- Trans-monolayer elasticity profile
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Surfaces and Interfaces
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
- Colloid and Surface Chemistry