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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells
Published on: November 12, 2020
Near-critical fluctuations and cytoskeleton-assisted phase separation lead to subdiffusion in cell membranes
Jens Ehrig1, Eugene P Petrov, Petra Schwille
1Biophysics, BIOTEC, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Abstract:
We address the relationship between membrane microheterogeneity and anomalous subdiffusion in cell membranes by carrying out Monte Carlo simulations of two-component lipid membranes. We find that near-critical fluctuations in the membrane lead to transient subdiffusion, while membrane-cytoskeleton interaction strongly affects phase separation, enhances subdiffusion, and eventually leads to hop diffusion of lipids. Thus, we present a minimum realistic model for membrane rafts showing the features of both microscopic phase separation and subdiffusion.
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