Influence of fluctuating membranes on self-assembly of patchy colloids.

Richard Matthews, Christos N Likos

Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.

Physical review letters 2012 Oct 26

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A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate the effect of a fluid membrane on patchy-particle assembly into biologically relevant structures motivated by viral cores and clathrin. For cores, we demonstrate a nonmonotonic dependence of the promotion of assembly on membrane stiffness. If the membrane is significantly deformable, cores are enveloped in buds, although this effect is suppressed for very flexible membranes. In the less deformable regime, we observe no marked enhancement for cores, even for strong adhesion to the surface. For clathrinlike particles, we again observe the formation of buds, whose morphology depends on membrane flexibility.

Citation

Richard Matthews, Christos N Likos. Influence of fluctuating membranes on self-assembly of patchy colloids. Physical review letters. 2012 Oct 26;109(17):178302