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Fluctuating shells under pressure.

ABSTRACT: Thermal fluctuations strongly modify the large length-scale elastic behavior of cross-linked membranes, giving rise to scale-dependent elastic moduli. Whereas thermal effects in flat membranes are well understood, many natural and artificial microstructures are modeled as thin elastic shells. Shells are distinguished from flat membranes by their nonzero curvature, which provides a size-dependent coupling between the in-plane stretching modes and the out-of-plane undulations. In addition, a shell can support a pressure difference between its interior and its exterior. Little is known about the effect of thermal fluctuations on the elastic properties of shells. Here, we study the statistical mechanics of shape fluctuations in a pressurized spherical shell, using perturbation theory and Monte Carlo computer simulations, explicitly including the effects of curvature and an inward pressure. We predict novel properties of fluctuating thin shells under point indentations and pressure-induced deformations. The contribution due to thermal fluctuations increases with increasing ratio of shell radius to thickness and dominates the response when the product of this ratio and the thermal energy becomes large compared with the bending rigidity of the shell. Thermal effects are enhanced when a large uniform inward pressure acts on the shell and diverge as this pressure approaches the classical buckling transition of the shell. Our results are relevant for the elasticity and osmotic collapse of microcapsules.

SUBMITTER: Paulose J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3511768 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Fluctuating shells under pressure.

Paulose Jayson J Vliegenthart Gerard A GA Gompper Gerhard G Nelson David R DR

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20121112 48

Thermal fluctuations strongly modify the large length-scale elastic behavior of cross-linked membranes, giving rise to scale-dependent elastic moduli. Whereas thermal effects in flat membranes are well understood, many natural and artificial microstructures are modeled as thin elastic shells. Shells are distinguished from flat membranes by their nonzero curvature, which provides a size-dependent coupling between the in-plane stretching modes and the out-of-plane undulations. In addition, a shell ...[more]

PMID: 23150558

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Project description:BackgroundClimate change threatens Earth's ice-based ecosystems which currently offer archives and eco-evolutionary experiments in the extreme. Arctic cryopeg brine (marine-derived, within permafrost) and sea ice brine, similar in subzero temperature and high salinity but different in temporal stability, are inhabited by microbes adapted to these extreme conditions. However, little is known about their viruses (community composition, diversity, interaction with hosts, or evolution) or how they might respond to geologically stable cryopeg versus fluctuating sea ice conditions.ResultsWe used long- and short-read viromics and metatranscriptomics to study viruses in Arctic cryopeg brine, sea ice brine, and underlying seawater, recovering 11,088 vOTUs (~species-level taxonomic unit), a 4.4-fold increase of known viruses in these brines. More specifically, the long-read-powered viromes doubled the number of longer (≥25 kb) vOTUs generated and recovered more hypervariable regions by >5-fold compared to short-read viromes. Distribution assessment, by comparing to known viruses in public databases, supported that cryopeg brine viruses were of marine origin yet distinct from either sea ice brine or seawater viruses, while 94% of sea ice brine viruses were also present in seawater. A virus-encoded, ecologically important exopolysaccharide biosynthesis gene was identified, and many viruses (~half of metatranscriptome-inferred "active" vOTUs) were predicted as actively infecting the dominant microbial genera Marinobacter and Polaribacter in cryopeg and sea ice brines, respectively. Evolutionarily, microdiversity (intra-species genetic variations) analyses suggested that viruses within the stable cryopeg brine were under significantly lower evolutionary pressures than those in the fluctuating sea ice environment, while many sea ice brine virus-tail genes were under positive selection, indicating virus-host co-evolutionary arms races.ConclusionsOur results confirmed the benefits of long-read-powered viromics in understanding the environmental virosphere through significantly improved genomic recovery, expanding viral discovery and the potential for biological inference. Evidence of viruses actively infecting the dominant microbes in subzero brines and modulating host metabolism underscored the potential impact of viruses on these remote and underexplored extreme ecosystems. Microdiversity results shed light on different strategies viruses use to evolve and adapt when extreme conditions are stable versus fluctuating. Together, these findings verify the value of long-read-powered viromics and provide foundational data on viral evolution and virus-microbe interactions in Earth's destabilized and rapidly disappearing cryosphere. Video Abstract.

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Fluctuating shells under pressure.

Publications

Fluctuating shells under pressure.

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