Abstract
Inspired by recent experimental observations of patterning at the membrane of a living cell, we propose a generic model for the dynamics of a fluctuating interface driven by particlelike inclusions which stimulate its growth. We find that the coupling between interfacial and inclusions dynamics yields microphase separation and the self-organization of traveling waves. These patterns are strikingly similar to those detected in experiments on biological membranes. Our results further show that the active growth kinetics do not fall into the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class for growing interfaces, displaying instead a novel superposition of scaling and sustained oscillations.
- Received 23 October 2017
- Revised 14 February 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.258001
© 2018 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Viewpoint
A Toy Model for Active Interfaces
Published 18 June 2018
A new statistical model predicts the evolving shape of a cellular membrane by accounting for the active feedback between the membrane and attached proteins.
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