Cone-shaped transmembrane proteins induce midplane membrane bending. Midplane membrane bending leads to long-range (5–500 nm) interactions (Phillips et al., 2009) between proteins. Note that although linear elasticity theory predicts repulsive interactions between proteins of similar isotropic shape (Kim et al., 1998; Weikl et al., 1998; Chou et al., 2001), attractive interactions may arise because of curvature anisotropy and deviation from linear elasticity (Chou et al., 2001; Reynwar et al., 2007).