1203.2493 (Thomas Speck et al.)

Random pinning limits the size of membrane adhesion domains    [PDF]

Thomas Speck, Richard L. C. Vink

Theoretical models describing specific adhesion of membranes predict (for certain parameters) a macroscopic phase separation of bonds into adhesion domains. Here we show analytically and numerically that this behavior is fundamentally altered if the membrane is pinned randomly due to, e.g., proteins that anchor the membrane to the cytoskeleton. Perturbations which locally restrict membrane fluctuations induce quenched disorder of the random field type and, therefore, limit the size of adhesion domains.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2493