title: Instabilities due to charge-density-curvature coupling in charged membranes.
abstract: Instabilities are caused by the reduction in the electrostatic energy when the membrane is curved with the higher charge density on the bilayer which is stretched by the curvature. In a bilayer where the charges can flip from one lipid layer to the other, there is a thermodynamic instability to a spontaneously curved state with different charge densities on the two sides. If the charges are not permitted to flip, there is a dynamical instability due to the correlated modulation of the charge density and curvature fields. Numerical estimates show that these effects are present in parameter regimes relevant to biological systems.
authors: Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
authors: V
authors: V
authors: Kumaran
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008564:Membrane Potentials; D008954:Models, Biological; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D055672:Static Electricity