Interaction of Conical Membrane Inclusions: Effect of Lateral Tension

TL;DR

This study investigates how lateral tension influences the membrane-mediated interactions between conical inclusions, revealing tension-dependent attraction and repulsion behaviors that could lead to aggregation.

Contribution

It introduces a model showing how lateral tension alters the interaction forces between conical membrane inclusions based on their orientation.

Findings

Interactions depend on cone orientation under tension

Tension increases both attractive and repulsive forces

Lateral tension can induce inclusion aggregation

Abstract

Considering two rigid conical inclusions embedded in a membrane subject to lateral tension, we study the membrane-mediated interaction between these inclusions that originates from the hat-shaped membrane deformations associated with the cones. At non-vanishing lateral tensions, the interaction is found to depend on the orientation of the cones with respect to the membrane plane. The interaction of inclusions of equal orientation is repulsive at all distances between them, while the inclusions of opposite orientation repel each other at small separations, but attract each other at larger ones. Both the repulsive and attractive forces become stronger with increasing lateral tension. This is different from what has been predicted on the basis of the same static model for the case of vanishing lateral tension. Without tension, the inclusions repel each other at all distances independently of their relative orientation. We conclude that lateral tension may induce the aggregation of conical membrane inclusions.