Breathing instability in biological cells, patterns of membrane proteins

International audienceThe activity of biological cells involves often the electric activity of its membranes which exhibit various spatiotemporal dynamics, from pulse, oscillatory bifurcation to stationary spatial modulation. This last kind of patterns appears on a typical diffusive time. A model has been proposed implying a coupling between the current flowing through membrane proteins and their electrophoretic motions in the case of mobile proteins. Here, we study the stability of the pattern in a 2D circular model cell versus the appearance of standing waves, the so-called breathing secondary instability