Soft nanotubes confining adhensive elastic nanoparticles

The mechanical interaction between soft membrane nanotubes and confined elastic nanoparticles plays essential roles in numerous cellular activities. The aim of this work is to theoretically analyze the interaction between soft nanotubes with various membrane tension and confined nanoparticles with different bending rigidities, and covering the cases of a single particle and multiple particles of spatial periodicity. Depending on the adhesion energy and bending rigidity ratios, a rich variety characteristic interaction states are determined, and the corresponding wrapping phase diagrams are determined. Based on perturbation analysis at small tube deformation and configurational assumptions of catenoid, torus, and one-sheeted hyperboloid at more general tube deformation, we have also obtained analytical solutions on the wrapping of rigid spherical nanoparticles in soft tubes. This study enriches our knowledge on the diversity of membrane tubules in morphologies and structures.