Figure 4.

Multimerization of N-BAR proteins through bilayer-mediated interactions. Energetically favorable N-BAR arrangements obtained, for U ≈ −0.9 nm^22,23 and τ = 0, from simulated annealing Monte Carlo simulations using (A) the N-BAR pair potential implied by the H0-induced leaflet thickness deformations in equation (3) with h⁺ = 0 and (B) a total N-BAR pair potential that is the sum of the potential used in (A) and a BAR pair potential based on previous calculations⁵³ (see the Methods section). The left insets in (A) and (B) show the random initial N-BAR configurations employed for (A) and (B). We used the N-BAR shape shown in the right inset in (A), which we modeled after the N-BAR structures described previously⁵, with hardcore steric constraints (see Supplementary Information Sec. S6). We employed periodic boundary conditions, with the N-BAR proteins in (A) forming a single chain. Scale bars, 10 nm.