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. 2011 Apr 6;100(7):1668–1677. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2011.02.029

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Membrane lateral heterogeneity is modulated by coupling to the cortical cytoskeleton. Ising model simulations were conducted over xa range of temperatures in the absence (A–C) and presence (D–F) of coupling to a cortical cytoskeleton meshwork. Red sites indicate locations where pixels are fixed to be white, mimicking a position where a lipid or protein is directly or indirectly connected to a fixed cytoskeleton. Below Tc, the bare Ising model is phase-separated (A). Long-range order is disrupted when the model is coupled to the cortical cytoskeleton (D) because the structure is cut off at the length of the cytoskeletal corrals. At Tc, the bare model has structure at all length scales (B), whereas coupling to the cytoskeleton cuts off the largest fluctuations (E). Above Tc, composition fluctuations that form in the bare Ising model (C) tend to localize along cytoskeletal filaments in the presence of coupling (F). (G) A higher-magnification image (from the boxed region in F) highlights the fact that the cytoskeleton-preferring white phase forms channels around filaments with a width given roughly by the correlation length (20 nm). The linear pinning density is 0.2 nm−1.