Figure 6. Predicting the dimerization geometry from numerical expressions.

(a) Free energy of end-to-end (F_e) dimers versus side-by-side (F_s) dimers as a function of membrane–protein interaction strength (w) at σ=0 (left) and membrane tension at w=5 kJ mol⁻¹ nm⁻² (right). End-to-end dimerization is favoured when F_e−F_s<0. (b) Configurational diagram relating protein aspect ratio (L/R) to w, on tensionless and tensed membranes. Red squares: side-by-side dimers, blue squares: end-to-end dimers. In all calculations, we used α=0.5, R=2.0 nm and κ=15 k_BT except when these values were varied.