Elastic moderation of intrinsically applied tension in lipid membranes

Abstract

Tension in lipid membranes is often controlled externally, by pulling on the boundary of the membrane or changing osmotic pressure across a curved membrane. But modifications of the tension can also be induced in an internal fashion, for instance as a byproduct of changing a membrane's electric potential or, as observed experimentally, by activity of membrane proteins. Here we develop a theory that demonstrates how such internal contributions to the tension are moderated through elastic stretching of the membrane when the membrane is initially in a low-tension floppy state.