Instability of myelin tubes under dehydration: deswelling of layered cylindrical structures.

Journal Article (Journal Article)

We report experimental observations of an undulational instability of myelin figures. Motivated by this, we examine theoretically the deformation and possible instability of concentric, cylindrical, multilamellar membrane structures. Under conditions of osmotic stress (swelling or dehydration), we find a stable, deformed state in which the layer deformation is given by deltaR infinity r(square root[B(A)/(hB)]), where B(A) is the area compression modulus, B is the interlayer compression modulus, and h is the repeat distance of layers. Also, above a finite threshold of dehydration (or osmotic stress), we find that the system becomes unstable to undulations, first with a characteristic wavelength of order square root[xi(d)0], where xi is the standard smectic penetration depth and d0 is the thickness of dehydrated region.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Chen, CM; Schmidt, CF; Olmsted, PD; MacKintosh, FC

Published Date

  • November 2001

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 64 / 5 Pt 1

Start / End Page

  • 050903 -

PubMed ID

  • 11735893

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1550-2376

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1539-3755

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1103/physreve.64.050903

Language

  • eng