Author/Editor		Ziherl, P; Svetina, S
Title		Nonaxisymmetric phospholipid vesicles: rackets, boomerangs and starfish
Type		članek
Source		Europhys Lett
Vol. and No.		Letnik 70, št. 5
Publication year		2005
Volume		str. 690-6
Language		eng
Abstract		Within the area difference elasticity model, we numerically minimize the bending energy of phospholipid vesicles to study the nonaxisymmetric shapes at the oblate-prolate transition. We analyze the onset of a coherent structural hierarchy of hybrid shapes such as rackets, boomerangs, and starfish, which all consist of a fiattened body and one or more elongated arms. The phase diagram of these shapes is characterized by a critical point tenninating the line of discontinuous transitions between rackets and boomerangs/starfish. The critical point is located very close to the discocyte with the volume of a humau erythrocyte, implying that in this part of the parameter space minute variations of volume and area difference can induce large changes of shape.
Descriptors		PHOSPHOLIPIDS MEMBRANES, ARTIFICIAL LIPID BILAYERS MODELS, THEORETICAL COMPUTER SIMULATION