"

Cookies ussage consent

Our site saves small pieces of text information (cookies) on your device in order to deliver better content and for statistical purposes. You can disable the usage of cookies by changing the settings of your browser. By browsing our site without changing the browser settings you grant us permission to store that information on your device.

I agree, do not show this message again.

THE OPENING-UP OF LIPID BILAYER VESICLES BY GUEST MOLECULES: THE ADSORPTION ISOTHERM AND NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS

Y. Suezaki1,* , T. Umeda2

Affiliation

  1. Physics Laboratory, Saga University, Saga 849-8501 Japan
  2. Faculty of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University, Kobe 658-0022, Japan

Abstract

Spherical vesicles in aqueous solution, made of bilayer lipid membranes, undergo shape transformations to open cup-like vesicles, due to the addition of guest molecules such as the protein talin. A semi-quantitative analysis of the opening up of the vesicles is made, based on the adsorption isotherm of guest molecules to the rims of the opening vesicles. The cuplike vesicles are represented as a partial sphere cut by a plane. The line tension of the rims is reduced greatly by adsorbed talin, and is determined from the statistical mechanics of the adsorption equilibrium. The total free energy of a cuplike vesicle is lower than that of the original spherical one. A more precise numerical evaluation of the shape of the open vesicles is also made. In this, we use the line tension and the equivalent spontaneous curvature of the membrane as theoretical parameters. The analysis reproduces the observed shapes of the cuplike vesicles well..

Keywords

Lipid bilayer membrane, Adsorption isotherm, Vesicle formation, Computer simulation.

Submitted at: Dec. 9, 2004
Accepted at: Jan. 26, 2005

Citation

Y. Suezaki, T. Umeda, THE OPENING-UP OF LIPID BILAYER VESICLES BY GUEST MOLECULES: THE ADSORPTION ISOTHERM AND NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 7, Iss. 1, pp. 25-34 (2005)