Detachment of a fluid membrane from a substrate and vesiculation

Abstract

The detachment dynamics of a fluid membrane with isotropic spontaneous curvature from a flat substrate are studied by using meshless membrane simulations. The membrane is detached from an open edge leading to vesicle formation. With strong adhesion, the competition between the bending and adhesion energies determines the minimum value of the spontaneous curvature for the detachment. In contrast, with weak adhesion, detachment occurs at smaller spontaneous curvatures due to the membrane thermal undulation. When parts of the membrane are pinned on the substrate, the detachment becomes slower and a remaining membrane patch forms straight or concave membrane edges. The edge undulation induces vesiculation of long strips and disk-shaped patches. Therefore, membrane rolling is obtained only for membrane strips shorter than the wavelength for deformation into unduloids. This suggests that the rolling observed for Ca²⁺-dependent membrane-binding proteins annexins A3, A4, A5, and A13 results from the anisotropic spontaneous curvature induced by the proteins.