3 results
The drag of a filament moving in a supported spherical bilayer
- Wenzheng Shi, Moslem Moradi, Ehssan Nazockdast
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- Journal:
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics / Volume 979 / 25 January 2024
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 January 2024, A6
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Many of the cell membrane's vital functions are achieved by the self-organization of the proteins and biopolymers embedded in it. The protein dynamics is in part determined by its drag. A large number of these proteins can polymerize to form filaments. In vitro studies of protein–membrane interactions often involve using rigid beads coated with lipid bilayers, as a model for the cell membrane. Motivated by this, we use slender-body theory to compute the translational and rotational resistance of a single filamentous protein embedded in the outer layer of a supported bilayer membrane and surrounded on the exterior by a Newtonian fluid. We first consider the regime where the two layers are strongly coupled through their inter-leaflet friction. We find that the drag along the parallel direction grows linearly with the filament's length and quadratically with the length for the perpendicular and rotational drag coefficients. These findings are explained using scaling arguments and by analysing the velocity fields around the moving filament. We then present and discuss the qualitative differences between the drag of a filament moving in a freely suspended bilayer and a supported membrane as a function of the membrane's inter-leaflet friction. Finally, we briefly discuss how these findings can be used in experiments to determine membrane rheology. In summary, we present a formulation that allows computation of the effects of membrane properties (its curvature, viscosity and inter-leaflet friction), and the exterior and interior three-dimensional fluids’ depth and viscosity on the drag of a rod-like/filamentous protein, all in a unified theoretical framework.
General solutions of linear poro-viscoelastic materials in spherical coordinates
- Moslem Moradi, Wenzheng Shi, Ehssan Nazockdast
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- Journal:
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics / Volume 946 / 10 September 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 04 August 2022, A22
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The cell cytoskeleton is a dynamic assembly of semi-flexible filaments and motor proteins. The cytoskeleton mechanics is a determining factor in many cellular processes, including cell division, cell motility and migration, mechanotransduction and intracellular transport. Mechanical properties of the cell, which are determined partly by its cytoskeleton, are also used as biomarkers for disease diagnosis and cell sorting. Experimental studies suggest that in whole cell scale, the cell cytoskeleton and its permeating cytosol may be modelled as a two-phase poro-viscoelastic (PVE) material composed of a viscoelastic (VE) network permeated by a viscous cytosol. We present the first general solution to this two-phase system in spherical coordinates, where we assume that both the fluid and network phases are in their linear response regime. Specifically, we use generalized linear incompressible and compressible VE constitutive equations to describe the stress in the fluid and network phases, respectively. We assume a constant permeability that couples the fluid and network displacements. We use these general solutions to study the motion of a rigid sphere moving under a constant force inside a two-phase system, composed of a linear elastic network and a Newtonian fluid. It is shown that the network compressibility introduces a slow relaxation of the sphere and non-monotonic network displacements with time along the direction of the applied force. Our results can be applied to particle-tracking microrheology to differentiate between PVE and VE materials, and to measure the fluid permeability as well as VE properties of the fluid and the network phases.
Microstructural theory and the rheology of concentrated colloidal suspensions
- Ehssan Nazockdast, Jeffrey F. Morris
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- Journal:
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics / Volume 713 / 25 December 2012
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 03 December 2012, pp. 420-452
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A theory for the analytical prediction of microstructure of concentrated Brownian suspensions of spheres in simple-shear flow is developed. The computed microstructure is used in a prediction of the suspension rheology. A near-hard-sphere suspension is studied for solid volume fraction $\phi \leq 0. 55$ and Péclet number $Pe= 6\lrm{\pi} \eta \dot {\gamma } {a}^{3} / {k}_{b} T\leq 100$; $a$ is the particle radius, $\eta $ is the suspending Newtonian fluid viscosity, $\dot {\gamma } $ is the shear rate, ${k}_{b} $ is the Boltzmann constant and $T$ is absolute temperature. The method developed determines the steady pair distribution function $g(\mathbi{r})$, where $\mathbi{r}$ is the pair separation vector, from a solution of the Smoluchowski equation (SE) reduced to pair level. To account for the influence of the surrounding bath of particles on the interaction of a pair, an integro-differential form of the pair SE is developed; the integral portion represents the forces due to the bath which drive the pair interaction. Hydrodynamic interactions are accounted for in a pairwise fashion, based on the dominant influence of pair lubrication interactions for concentrated suspensions. The SE is modified to include the influence of shear-induced relative diffusion, and this is found to be crucial for success of the theory; a simple model based on understanding of the shear-induced self-diffusivity is used for this property. The computation of the microstructure is split into two parts, one specific to near-equilibrium ($Pe\ll 1$), where a regular perturbation expansion of $g$ in $Pe$ is applied, and a general-$Pe$ solution of the full SE. The predicted microstructure at low $Pe$ agrees with prior theory for dilute conditions, and becomes increasingly distorted from the equilibrium isotropic state as $\phi $ increases at fixed $Pe\lt 1$. Normal stress differences are predicted and the zero-shear viscosity predicted agrees with simulation results obtained using a Green–Kubo formulation (Foss & Brady, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 407, 2000, pp. 167–200). At $Pe\geq O(1)$, the influence of convection results in a progressively more anisotropic microstructure, with the contact values increasing with $Pe$ to yield a boundary layer and a wake. Agreement of the predicted microstructure with observations from simulations is generally good and discrepancies are clearly noted. The predicted rheology captures shear thinning and shear thickening as well as normal stress differences in good agreement with simulation; quantitative agreement is best at large $\phi $.