Formation and Interaction of Membrane Tubes

TLDR

The study proposes that the identified membrane tube properties are crucial for the formation and architecture of tubular organelles. The authors demonstrate that membrane tube formation involves first‑order shape transitions, that tube force varies nonmonotonically with length, that tubes attract and coalesce, and that detached tubes act as short‑persistence‑length semiflexible filaments.

Abstract

We show that the formation of membrane tubes (or membrane tethers), which is a crucial step in many biological processes, is highly nontrivial and involves first-order shape transitions. The force exerted by an emerging tube is a nonmonotonic function of its length. We point out that tubes attract each other, which eventually leads to their coalescence. We also show that detached tubes behave like semiflexible filaments with a rather short persistence length. We suggest that these properties play an important role in the formation and structure of tubular organelles.