title: Activating membranes.
abstract: We present a general dynamical theory of a membrane coupled to an actin cortex containing polymerizing filaments with active stresses and currents, and demonstrate that active membrane dynamics [S. Ramaswamy et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3494 (2000)] and spontaneous shape oscillations emerge from this description. We also consider membrane instabilities and patterns induced by the presence of filaments with polar orientational correlations in the tangent plane of the membrane. The dynamical features we predict should be seen in a variety of cellular contexts involving the dynamics of the membrane-cytoskeleton composite and cytoskeletal extracts coupled to synthetic vesicles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
authors.forename: Ananyo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Maitra
authors.affiliation: Raman Research Institute, C.V. Raman Avenue, Bangalore 560 080, India.
authors.forename: Pragya
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.affiliation: Raman Research Institute, C.V. Raman Avenue, Bangalore 560 080, India and National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), Bellary Road, Bangalore 560 065, India.
authors.forename: Madan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India and TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, 21 Brundavan Colony, Osman Sagar Road, Narsingi, Hyderabad 500 075, India.
authors.forename: Sriram
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramaswamy
mesh_terms: D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological