Glycocalyx-induced formation of membrane tubes.

ABSTRACT: Tubular membrane structures are ubiquitous in cells and in the membranes of intracellular organelles such as the Golgi complex and the endoplasmic reticulum. Tubulation plays essential roles in numerous biological processes, including filopodia growth, trafficking, ion transport, and cellular motility. Understanding the fundamental mechanism of the formation of membrane tubes is thus an important problem in the fields of biology and biophysics. Although extensive studies have shown that tubes can be formed due to localized forces acting on the membrane or by the spontaneous curvature induced by membrane-bound proteins, little is known about how membrane tubes are induced by glycocalyx, a sugar-rich layer at the cell surface. In this work, we develop a biophysical model that combines polyme

SUBMITTER: Xiao K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12242410 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature