Why the wrinkling transition in partially polymerized membranes is not universal? Fractal-multifractal hierarchy.
When partially polymerized membranes wrinkle they exhibit a passage from a conventional buckling (due to an instability caused by chiral symmetry breaking) at low polymerization to a local roughening (due to a frustration in the local packing of the chiral molecules composing the membrane) as a function of the polymerization of the lipids aliphatic tails. This transition was found to be non-universal and here we used neutron scattering to elucidate that this behavior is due to the onset of stretching in the membrane accompanied by a bilayer thickness variation. Close to the percolation limit this deformation is plastic similar to mutated lysozymes. We draw an analogy between this transition and echinocytes in red blood cells.
Chaieb
Sahraoui
S
Mechanical Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. sch@uiuc.edu
Málková
Sárka
S
Lal
Jyotsana
J
D000818:Animals; D004910:Erythrocyte Membrane / Q000502:physiology*; D017709:Fractals; D008560:Membrane Fluidity; D008954:Models, Biological; D044367:Phase Transition