Curved inclusions surf membrane waves

Department of Chemical Physics, The Weizmann Institute of Science - P.O.B. 26, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

Corresponding author: nir.gov@weizmann.ac.il

Received: 22 September 2008
Accepted: 3 November 2008

Abstract

In this letter we describe how membrane inclusions that have a spontaneous curvature, will be convected on the membrane due to the propagation of membrane waves. We calculate the Stokes drift of such particles and the effect on their overall density field. We solve analytically for a uniform sinusoidal wave in the absence of diffusion, and using simulations for the more realistic case of decaying waves with diffusion. In the latter case we provide some good analytic approximations. A variety of such membrane waves that propagate over a significant proportion of the cell surface exists in living cells, and we therefore show that they can play a role in transporting membrane proteins.