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Updated: Oct 20, 2025

Membrane Remodeling of Giant Vesicles in Response to Localized Calcium Ion Gradients
Published on: July 16, 2018
Mechanics of cup-shaped caveolae
Ahis Shrestha1, Fabien Pinaud2, Christoph A Haselwandter1
1Department of Physics and Astronomy and Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA.
Abstract:
Caveolae are cell membrane invaginations of defined lipid and protein composition that flatten with increasing membrane tension. Super-resolution light microscopy and electron microscopy have revealed that caveolae can take a variety of cuplike shapes. We show here that, for the range in membrane tension relevant for cell membranes, the competition between membrane tension and membrane bending yields caveolae with cuplike shapes similar to those observed experimentally. We find that the caveola shape and its sensitivity to changes in membrane tension can depend strongly on the caveola spontaneous curvature and on the size of caveola domains. Our results suggest that heterogeneity in caveola shape produces a staggered response of caveolae to mechanical perturbations of the cell membrane, which may facilitate regulation of membrane tension over the wide range of scales thought to be relevant for cell membranes.
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