<b>Morphology change in nematic membranes induced by defects
Abstract
The cell membrane is one of the most important structures of living organisms. This is due to the many functions attributed to it such as permeable selectivity, protection, anchoring to the cytoskeleton and so many others. Any change in the shape of the cell membrane may affect directly the properties and abilities. In this article, we study how defects in the liquid crystalline organization of a membrane can change its shape. For performing this, we consider a membrane with orientational order, i.e., a nematic membrane, which can happen in biological membranes, nematic films and other systems and study how a defect in this order can change the shape of the membrane when the bending rigidity is considered. We find that depending on the ratio of rigidity and elastic constant, buckling of this membrane may happens and turn it into pseudo-spheres.
Downloads
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY AND COPYRIGHTS
I Declare that current article is original and has not been submitted for publication, in part or in whole, to any other national or international journal.
The copyrights belong exclusively to the authors. Published content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) guidelines, which allows sharing (copy and distribution of the material in any medium or format) and adaptation (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for any purpose, even commercially, under the terms of attribution.
Read this link for further information on how to use CC BY 3.0 properly.
