Figure 1. Membrane embedding of a hydrophobic insertion.

A cylindrical insertion of a circular cross-section of radius is embedded to a depth into a lipid monolayer, the neutral plane of the latter lying at two thirds of its thickness (left cartoon). Membrane embedding is presented in two steps. The first step is generation of a void necessary for the insertion embedding without altering the membrane shape. The second step represents the membrane shape relaxation. The color code represents the intra-membrane stresses.