Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting | Bucharest 2026

Biophysics of Membrane Reactions in Brian

Tuesday Speaker Abstracts

LIPID NANOTUBES AS A MODEL SYSTEM FOR NEURON SIGNALING AND MORPHOLOGICAL PLASTICITY Jan Steinkühler Kiel University, Bio-Inspired Computation, Kiel, Germany Voltage-sensitive ion channels stand at the centre of studies of cellular excitability in neuronal networks. However, the spatial propagation of electrical waves along nerve fibres is not a property inherent to an individual ion channel but rather emerges from the arrangement of ion channels along a tubular lipid membrane. While the in-vitro study of functional ion channels in model membranes is well established, the propagation of an action potential along a lipid-bilayer nanotube has not yet been studied. Here, we present our experimental work investigating these phenomena using electrical and optical measurements on force-induced lipid nanotubes pulled from giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) and demonstrate the cable-like properties of such nanotubes. Furthermore, we study memory effects arising from the interplay between electrically induced lipid migration and ionic nanochannel conductance. Based on these measurements, we develop a new hypotheses of membrane-based plasticity that shed light on recent findings of a syncytial nerve net in ctenophores, emphasizing the role of membrane morphologies in the evolutionary origins of nerve nets. Finally, we present our lab’s efforts toward automated cell free expression of ion channels and data-driven modelling of membrane excitability. More broadly, our results help establish the interplay between membrane phase, shape, and electrical properties in a controlled biophysical experimental setup.

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