Corrections to the Saffman-Delbrück mobility for membrane bound proteins

¹ University of California, Santa Barbara
² University of California, Los Angeles

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: alevine{at}chem.ucla.edu.

Submitted on August 6, 2007
Revised on August 16, 2007
Accepted on 11 September 2007

	Abstract

Recent experiments by Y. Gambin et al. [PNAS 103, 2098 (2006)] have called into question the applicability of the Saffman-Delbrück diffusivity for proteins embedded in the lipid bilayers. We present a simple argument to account for this observation that should be generically valid for a large class of transmembrane and membrane bound proteins. Whenever the protein-lipid interactions locally deform the membrane, that deformation generates new hydrodynamic stresses on the protein membrane complex leading to a suppression of its mobility. We show that this suppression depends on the protein size in a manner consistent with the work of Y. Gambin et al.

Key Words: membrane hydrodynamics, protein lipid interactions, transmembrane protein mobility

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