Adhesion by Curvature of Lipid Tubules

The adhesion of lipid tubules to a rigid wall is governed by an equilibrium condition that holds at the detachment points, where tubules and wall lose contact. Such an adhesion condition is derived in this paper for the most general elastic energy of the tubule and an arbitrarily curved wall. It also depends on the curvature of the wall, which thus plays a central rôle in determining whether the adhesion of a tubule is possible. This rôle is clearly illustrated by a specific equilibrium problem we solve here: the one where a tubule adheres to a rigid groove, which is modelled as a hollow half-cylinder.