- Title Information
- Title
- Internal degrees of freedom in membranes and synchronization phenomena at low Reynolds number
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Jiang, Hongyuan
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- creator
- Origin Information
- Copyright Date
(keyDate="yes", encoding="w3cdtf")
- 2009
- Physical Description
- Extent
- xiv, 94 p.
- digitalOrigin
- born digital
- Note
- Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Brown University (2010)
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Powers, Thomas
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- director
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Tang, Jay
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Shenoy, Vivek
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- reader
- Name:
Corporate
- Name Part
- Brown University. Division of Engineering. Mechanics of Solids
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- sponsor
- Genre (aat)
- theses
- Abstract
- The cell membrane is not a simple assembly of lipids and proteins. There are many internal degrees of freedom in a membrane, such as the shape of lipid molecules, the tilt
direction of lipid molecules and the species of lipids and proteins in a biological membrane. Here we study two different internal degrees of freedom in membranes and their effects on the cell
morphology and biological processes. Motivated by the propensity for tilt order and the common occurrence of narrow necks in the intermediate stages of biological processes such as endocytosis
and vesicle trafficking, we examine how tilt order inhibits the formation of necks in the equilibrium shapes. In addition, motivated by recent experiments which showed that the mechanical
properties of membranes play an important role in lipid sorting, a model is developed to study how the coupling between membrane composition and membrane bending stiffness and tension affects
tubule formation in a multi-component membrane. We show that drawing a tubule from a vesicle leads to a rearrangement of composition in which the phase of higher flexibility segregates into the
highly curved tubule. Lastly, this thesis will also study the synchronization of cilia and flagella. Motivated by the observed coordination of nearby beating cilia, we use a scale model
experiment to show that hydrodynamic interactions can cause synchronization between rotating paddles driven at constant torque in a very viscous fluid. Synchronization is only observed when the
shafts supporting the paddles have some flexibility. The phase difference in the synchronized state depends on the symmetry of the paddles. Calculations using the method of regularized
stokeslets and analytic theory match the experimental observations well.
- Subject (Local)
- Topic
- vesicle shape
- Subject (Local)
- Topic
- tilt order
- Subject (Local)
- Topic
- lipid sorting
- Subject (Local)
- Topic
- cilia and flagella
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/850194")
- Topic
- Cell membranes
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1141085")
- Topic
- Synchronization
- Record Information
- Record Content Source (marcorg)
- RPB
- Record Creation Date
(encoding="iso8601")
- 20091218
- Language
- Language Term:
Code (ISO639-2B)
- eng
- Language Term:
Text
- English
- Identifier:
DOI
- 10.7301/Z0DN43BK
- Access Condition:
rights statement
(href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
- In Copyright
- Access Condition:
restriction on access
- Collection is open for research.
- Type of Resource (primo)
- dissertations