Effective spring constants for the elastically coupled insertions in membranes

Abstract

In linear elastic theory, membrane deformation energy caused by inclusions (e.g., membrane-spanning peptides in lipid bilayers) can be rigorously presented in terms of coupled harmonic oscillators. The general expressions for the corresponding "effective spring constants" are derived here for quite general boundary conditions allowing, e.g., for the azimuthal variation of the contact slope. The case of two insertions is considered in more details.