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Polymers at membranes
(2000)
The surface of biological cells consists of a lipid membrane and a large amount of various proteins and polymers, which are embedded in the membrane or attached to it. We investigate how membranes are influenced by polymers, which are anchored to the membrane by one end. The entropic pressure exerted by the polymer induces a curvature, which bends the membrane away from the polymer. The resulting membrane shape profile is a cone in the vicinity of the anchor segment and a catenoid far away from it. The perturbative calculations are confirmed by Monte-Carlo simulations. An additional attractive interaction between polymer and membrane reduces the entropically induced curvature. In the limit of strong adsorption, the polymer is localized directly on the membrane surface and does not induce any pressure, i.e. the membrane curvature vanishes. If the polymer is not anchored directly on the membrane surface, but in a non-vanishing anchoring distance, the membrane bends towards the polymer for strong adsorption. In the last part of the thesis, we study membranes under the influence of non-anchored polymers in solution. In the limit of pure steric interactions between the membrane and free polymers, the membrane curves towards the polymers (in contrast to the case of anchored polymers). In the limit of strong adsorption the membrane bends away from the polymers.