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Naomi Oppenheimer

Publications and source records attributed to Naomi Oppenheimer.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Dynamics of membranes with immobile inclusions

Cell membranes are anchored to the cytoskeleton via immobile inclusions. We investigate the effect of such anchors on the in-plane dynamics of a fluid membrane and mobile inclusions (proteins) embedded in it. The immobile particles lead to a decreased diffusion coefficient of mobile ones and suppress the correlated diffusion of particle pairs. Due to the long-range, quasi-two-dimensional nature of membrane flows, these effects become significant at a low area fraction (below one percent) of immobile inclusions.

cond-mat.soft↗

Correlated dynamics of inclusions in a supported membrane

The hydrodynamic theory of heterogeneous fluid membranes is extended to the case of a membrane adjacent to a solid substrate. We derive the coupling diffusion coefficients of pairs of membrane inclusions in the limit of large separation compared to the inclusion size. Two-dimensional compressive stresses in the membrane make the coupling coefficients decay asymptotically as $1/r^2$ with interparticle distance $r$. For the common case, where the distance to the substrate is of sub-micron scale, we present expressions for the coupling between distant disklike inclusions, which are valid for arbitrary inclusion size. We calculate the effect of inclusions on the response of the membrane and the associated corrections to the coupling diffusion coefficients to leading order in the concentration of inclusions. While at short distances the response is modified as if the membrane were a two-dimensional suspension, the large-distance response is not renormalized by the inclusions.

cond-mat.soft↗

Correlated diffusion of membrane proteins and their effect on membrane viscosity

We extend the Saffman theory of membrane hydrodynamics to account for the correlated motion of membrane proteins, along with the effect of protein concentration on that correlation and on the response of the membrane to stresses. Expressions for the coupling diffusion coefficients of protein pairs and their concentration dependence are derived in the limit of small protein size relative to the inter-protein separation. The additional role of membrane viscosity as determining the characteristic length scale for membrane response leads to unusual concentration effects at large separation -- the transverse coupling increases with protein concentration, whereas the longitudinal one becomes concentration-independent.

cond-mat.soft↗