%0 Journal Article
%T Application of a Free Energy Landscape Approach to Study Tension Dependent Bilayer Tubulation Mediated by Curvature Inducing Proteins
%A Richard W. Tourdot
%A N. Ramakrishnan
%A Tobias Baumgart
%A Ravi Radhakrishnan
%J Physics
%D 2015
%I arXiv
%X We investigate the phenomenon of protein induced tubulation of lipid bilayer membranes within a continuum framework using Monte Carlo simulations coupled with the Widom insertion technique to compute excess chemical potentials. Tubular morphologies are spontaneously formed when the density and the curvature-field strength of the membrane bound proteins exceed their respective thresholds and this transition is marked by a sharp drop in the excess chemical potential. We find that the planar to tubular transition can be described by a micellar model and that the corresponding free energy barrier increases with increase in the curvature-field strength, (i.e. of protein-membrane interactions), and also with increase in membrane tension.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.02986v1